Route reliability record
MSP→LGA
Minneapolis to New York
- Flights
- 1,887
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,020 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 2 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 1,887 MSP to LGA flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.7% of the time and Saturday flights 84.3%, against 79.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,829 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
79.8% on time across 1,804 flights
These figures cover 1,887 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to LGA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 83 | 80.8% | 56 min | 6.02% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,804 | 79.8% | 67 min | 2.44% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to LGA
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 17 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–8am312 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am411 flights85.1%
- 11am–2pm313 flights77.8%
- 2pm–5pm420 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm68 flights76.6%
- 8pm–5am363 flights76.2%
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 89.7% of the time, against 72.3% for the afternoon window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 420 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 61.4% on time, against 89.8% in February. 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 195 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.7%. 12 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. National Airspace System accounts for 53% of the 25,000 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.
- 53%National Airspace System
- 37%Carrier
- 9%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 8,950 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 24,521 reported delay minutes.
53% 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 13,000 minutes out of 25,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.60%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 1,020 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 83.5% on time across 1,889 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,887 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 LGA 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. February runs 89.8% on time and December 61.4%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,829 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to LGA questions
How often is MSP to LGA 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 20.2% of the 1,887 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
79.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 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 LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.3%, 17 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 LGA?
December is the weakest month at 61.4% on time, compared with 89.8% in February. Across the year that is 28 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
- LGA to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route69.9%
- ORD to LGA, a related route67.3%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. MSP to LGA and LGA 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.