Carrier route record

DLMSP→GRR

Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Grand Rapids

Flights: 591
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 48%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on MSP to GRR lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 591 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSP to GRR from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 584 completed flights

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.85%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.6%

Every carrier on MSP to GRR, 1,243 flights

These figures cover 591 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on MSP to GRR

Delta flew 591 of the 1,243 flights on MSP to GRR, about 48% of it. Its 77.9% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 81.1% to Delta at 77.9%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on MSP to GRR
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	652	81.1%	73 min	0.92%	B+
Delta Air Lines (this page)	591	77.9%	64 min	0.85%	B+

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on MSP to GRR

DL 171120:4576.7% · 360 flights

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am62 flights85.5%
11am–2pm2 flights—
2pm–5pm68 flights71.6%
5pm–8pm133 flights84.0%
8pm–5am326 flights75.2%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 85.5% of the time, against 71.6% for the afternoon window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 326 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on MSP to GRR through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.November best, December worst

December is the weak month at 63.0% on time, against 89.1% 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. June was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 71.8%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 55% of the 8,277 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Carrier
55%
Late-arriving aircraft
25%
National Airspace System
17%
Extreme weather
3%

The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,559 of the 8,277 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,277 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.85%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs

8.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg runs 80.8% on time across 591 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 591 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking Delta on MSP to GRR

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 591 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 77.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 584 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures