Route reliability record
MSP→GRR
Minneapolis to Grand Rapids
- Flights
- 1,253
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 408 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,253 MSP to GRR flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 658 at 81.7% on time.
Best time to fly MSP to GRR: a 5pm–8pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.8%, against 79.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,238 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.04%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
81.7% on time across 658 flights
These figures cover 1,253 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 GRR
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 658 | 81.7% | 72 min | 1.06% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 595 | 77.0% | 62 min | 1.01% | B |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 81.7%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to GRR
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 Grand Rapids
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 → GRRMinneapolis to Grand Rapids | SkyWest Airlines | 80.8% | 81.7% | 1.06% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. MSP → GRRMinneapolis to Grand Rapids | Delta Air Lines | 76.2% | 77.0% | 1.01% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 1711 21:40 |
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 14 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am320 flights85.2%
- 11am–2pm285 flights80.2%
- 2pm–5pm230 flights76.7%
- 5pm–8pm73 flights87.3%
- 8pm–5am345 flights73.8%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 87.3% on time. The full set of windows spans 14 points.
Explore
Filter MSP to GRR 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 GRR, the best departure window is 5pm–8pm at 87.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 73.8%, a wide gap of 13.5 points. All US flights leaving 5pm–8pm ran 68.0%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am85.2%
- 11am–2pm80.2%
- 2–5pm76.7%
- 5–8pm87.3%
- 8pm–5am73.8%
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 25 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 62.3% on time, against 87.6% in November. 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 120 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.2%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 65% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 65%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 11%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 65%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 17,027 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.04% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.8% 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.
At 408 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 5pm–8pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 81.2% on time across 1,253 flights, within 2 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 1,253 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 GRR 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. November runs 87.6% on time and December 62.3%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,238 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to GRR questions
How often is MSP to GRR delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.5% of the 1,253 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to GRR?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 81.7% on time across 658 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 77.0%, a gap of 5 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 GRR?
The 5pm–8pm departure window is the strongest at 87.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.8%, 14 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 GRR?
December is the weakest month at 62.3% on time, compared with 87.6% in November. Across the year that is 25 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
- GRR to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to GRR81.7%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to GRR77.0%
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ORD to GRR, a related route69.5%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record81.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.0%
- 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 GRR and GRR 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.