Route reliability record
MSP→MEM
Minneapolis to Memphis
- Flights
- 900
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 700 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 900 MSP to MEM flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to MEM: a 5pm–8pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.0%, against 82.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 54 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 891 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
82.3% on time across 849 flights
These figures cover 900 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
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to MEM
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 Linesthin sample | 51 | 89.8% | 86 min | 3.92% | A− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 849 | 82.3% | 56 min | 0.82% | B+ |
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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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am364 flights85.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm193 flights75.5%
- 5pm–8pm65 flights90.5%
- 8pm–5am278 flights82.2%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 90.5% on time. The full set of windows spans 15 points.
Explore
Filter MSP to MEM by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On MSP to MEM, the best departure window is 5pm–8pm at 90.5% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 75.5%, a wide gap of 15.0 points. All US flights leaving 5pm–8pm ran 68.0%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am85.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm75.5%
- 5–8pm90.5%
- 8pm–5am82.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 69.0% on time, against 89.8% in October. 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 89 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 78.8%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 61% of the 8,785 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%Carrier
- 21%Extreme weather
- 17%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 0%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 21% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 8,785 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,315 of the 8,785 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.00% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.1% 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 700 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 86.5% on time across 900 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. 900 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 MEM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 900 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 82.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 891 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to MEM questions
How often is MSP to MEM 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 17.3% of the 900 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to MEM compared with the rest of the country?
82.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 MEM?
The 5pm–8pm departure window is the strongest at 90.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.5%, 15 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 MEM?
December is the weakest month at 69.0% on time, compared with 89.8% in October. Across the year that is 21 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
- MEM to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Memphis International (MEM) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ATL to MEM, a related route81.1%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.3%
- 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
Direction matters. MSP to MEM and MEM 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.