Route reliability record
MSP→FAR
Minneapolis to Fargo
- Flights
- 1,218
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 223 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 6 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,218 MSP to FAR flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 519 at 86.8% on time.
Best time to fly MSP to FAR: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.1% of the time and Saturday flights 88.5%, against 82.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 56 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,209 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.66%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
86.8% on time across 519 flights
These figures cover 1,218 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 FAR
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 86.8% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 80.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 699 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 519 | 86.8% | 64 min | 0.77% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 699 | 80.0% | 79 min | 0.57% | B+ |
SkyWest leads Delta by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to FAR
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Minneapolis to Fargo
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSP → FARMinneapolis to Fargo | SkyWest Airlines | 86.1% | 86.8% | 0.77% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 2. MSP → FARMinneapolis to Fargo | Delta Air Lines | 79.5% | 80.0% | 0.57% | 8pm–5am, Sat | DL 2295 22:45 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 10 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am154 flights90.1%
- 11am–2pm256 flights83.9%
- 2pm–5pm96 flights88.5%
- 5pm–8pm372 flights80.5%
- 8pm–5am340 flights79.9%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.1% of the time, against 79.9% for the overnight window. That is 10 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 372 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP to FAR 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 FAR, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 79.9%, a wide gap of 10.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am90.1%
- 11am–2pm83.9%
- 2–5pm88.5%
- 5–8pm80.5%
- 8pm–5am79.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 67.2% on time, against 93.1% in September. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 131 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 77.0%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 61% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%Carrier
- 19%Extreme weather
- 13%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 19% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 15,353 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,289 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.66%, 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
5.4% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 223 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 87.2% on time across 1,218 flights, 4 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,218 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 FAR 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. September runs 93.1% on time and December 67.2%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,209 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to FAR questions
How often is MSP to FAR 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 17.1% of the 1,218 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to FAR?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 86.8% on time across 519 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 80.0%, a gap of 7 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to FAR?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 79.9%, 10 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 FAR?
December is the weakest month at 67.2% on time, compared with 93.1% in September. Across the year that is 26 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
- FAR to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to FAR86.8%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to FAR80.0%
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ORD to FAR, a related route69.5%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record86.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.0%
- 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 FAR and FAR 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.