Carrier route record
DLMSP→MSN
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Madison
- Flights
- 357
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 32%
- 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 MSN 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 357 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's MSP to MSN 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 353 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.12%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.8%
Every carrier on MSP to MSN, 1,104 flights
These figures cover 357 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
Delta against every carrier on MSP to MSN
Delta flew 357 of the 1,104 flights on MSP to MSN, about 32% of it. Its 82.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 82.2% to SkyWest at 80.1%.
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)thin sample | 357 | 82.2% | 60 min | 1.12% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 747 | 80.1% | 76 min | 0.94% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to MSN
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 357 flights.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 82.0% on time across 349 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 349 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to MSN through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 90.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 36 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 91.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.5%. 19 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 48% of the 3,796 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.
- 48%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, 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 1,836 of the 3,796 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,796 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.12% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.4% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 228 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8pm–5am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 90.9% on time across 357 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 357 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 MSN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 357 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. 353 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.