Route reliability record
MSP→JFK
Minneapolis to New York
- Flights
- 750
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,029 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 750 MSP to JFK flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.5% of the time and Friday flights 87.4%, against 82.2% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 46 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 734 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.47%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
82.2% on time across 750 flights
These figures cover 750 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to JFK
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 | 750 | 82.2% | 87 min | 1.47% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to JFK
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Minneapolis to New York
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSP → JFKMinneapolis to New York | Delta Air Lines | 81.0% | 82.2% | 1.47% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 2661 12:59 |
| 2. MSP → EWRMinneapolis to Newark | Republic Airways | 79.1% | 84.4% | 6.33% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
| 3. MSP → LGAMinneapolis to New York | Delta Air Lines | 77.9% | 79.8% | 2.44% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | DL 2719 07:00 |
| 4. MSP → EWRMinneapolis to Newark | Delta Air Lines | 72.5% | 75.5% | 3.97% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2864 07:59 |
| 5. MSP → EWRMinneapolis to Newark | United Airlines | 72.2% | 73.8% | 2.15% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 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–8am266 flights87.5%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm263 flights83.4%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am218 flights74.3%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.5% of the time, against 74.3% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 266 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 67.9% on time, against 94.4% in April. 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 93 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 87.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.4%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 54% of the 11,000 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.
- 54%Carrier
- 36%National Airspace System
- 7%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 4,112 minutes out of 11,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 11,328 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, 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 6,082 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.47% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.67%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.4% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,029 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 runs 81.3% on time across 750 flights, within about a point 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. 750 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in JFK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 750 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 82.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 734 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to JFK questions
How often is MSP to JFK 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 17.8% of the 750 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MSP to JFK compared with the rest of the country?
82.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 74.3%, 13 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 JFK?
December is the weakest month at 67.9% on time, compared with 94.4% in April. Across the year that is 27 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
- JFK to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route69.9%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.2%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. MSP to JFK and JFK to MSP are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed MSP to JFK’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.