Route reliability record
MSP→DTW
Minneapolis to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,884
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 528 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,884 MSP to DTW flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.0%, against 82.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 54 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,872 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
82.8% on time across 1,881 flights
These figures cover 1,884 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to DTW
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,881 | 82.8% | 59 min | 0.58% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 66.7% | 37 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to DTW
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am370 flights93.5%
- 8am–11am365 flights87.9%
- 11am–2pm362 flights89.2%
- 2pm–5pm268 flights80.9%
- 5pm–8pm453 flights67.0%
- 8pm–5am66 flights74.2%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.5% of the time, against 67.0% for the evening window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 453 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP to DTW by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On MSP to DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.0%, a wide gap of 26.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.5%
- 8–11am87.9%
- 11am–2pm89.2%
- 2–5pm80.9%
- 5–8pm67.0%
- 8pm–5am74.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 67.5% on time, against 89.7% in August. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 182 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.3%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 59% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 18,897 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.58%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 528 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 79.8% on time across 1,881 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,884 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DTW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 89.7% on time and December 67.5%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,872 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to DTW questions
How often is MSP to DTW delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.3% of the 1,884 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to DTW compared with the rest of the country?
82.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.0%, 27 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on MSP to DTW?
December is the weakest month at 67.5% on time, compared with 89.7% in August. Across the year that is 22 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record66.7%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MSP to DTW and DTW to MSP are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.