Carrier route record
DLMSP→IND
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 987
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 79%
- 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 IND lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 987 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSP to IND from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 982 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.51%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.8%
Every carrier on MSP to IND, 1,243 flights
These figures cover 987 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on MSP to IND
Delta flew 987 of the 1,243 flights on MSP to IND, most of the route. Its 80.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 80.7% to SkyWest at 76.3%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 987 | 80.7% | 62 min | 0.51% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 256 | 76.3% | 62 min | 1.17% | B |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to IND
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 13 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–11am201 flights88.9%
- 11am–2pm235 flights83.0%
- 2pm–5pm187 flights78.6%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am364 flights75.6%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.9% of the time, against 75.6% for the overnight window. That is 13 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 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to IND through the year
December is the weak month at 68.7% on time, against 92.5% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 73.9%. 14 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 57% of the 12,000 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.
- 57%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, 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 6,661 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,754 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.51%, 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
6.2% 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.
The 503 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.8% on time across 989 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 987 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 IND
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 987 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 80.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 982 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to IND, every carrier
- Delta on IND to MSP, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to IND76.3%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.