Carrier route record
DLMSP→IAH
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Houston
- Flights
- 1,278
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 66%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MSP to IAH 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 1,278 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSP to IAH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,258 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.94%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.2%
Every carrier on MSP to IAH, 1,940 flights
These figures cover 1,278 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
Delta against every carrier on MSP to IAH
Delta flew 1,278 of the 1,940 flights on MSP to IAH, most of the route. Its 79.7% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 87.4% to SkyWest at 77.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 639 | 87.4% | 59 min | 0.78% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,278 | 79.7% | 62 min | 0.94% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 77.3% | 110 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to IAH
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am342 flights86.4%
- 8am–11am150 flights84.4%
- 11am–2pm162 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm260 flights77.2%
- 5pm–8pm127 flights70.9%
- 8pm–5am237 flights73.7%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.4% of the time, against 70.9% for the evening window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 342 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to IAH through the year
December is the weak month at 64.8% on time, against 88.1% 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. August was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.3%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on MSP to IAH runs when it is late
Delta on MSP to IAH often beats the schedule: 416 of 1,258 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 256 late arrivals split 85 under half an hour, 73 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 98 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early416 flights33.1%
- Within 15 min586 flights46.6%
- 15–29 min late85 flights6.8%
- 30–59 min late73 flights5.8%
- 1–2 hours late70 flights5.6%
- 2+ hours late28 flights2.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,258 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
47 of 236 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. In the other direction, 67 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at IAH.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on MSP to IAH
The latest arrival of the period was on 31 July 2026, 5 hours 50 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 31 July 2026 | 5 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 March 2026 | 5 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 July 2026 | 4 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 4 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 November 2025 | 4 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,617 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 15,822 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.94% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.63%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here 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.
The 1,034 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 79.1% on time across 1,278 flights, within half a point 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 1,278 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on MSP to IAH
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 88.1% on time and December 64.8%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,258 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to IAH, every carrier
- Delta on IAH to MSP, the return leg
- United Airlines on MSP to IAH87.4%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- 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
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.