Carrier route record
DLMSP→MSN
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Madison
- Flights
- 359
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 32%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MSP to MSN lands a B, 6 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 359 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's MSP to MSN record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 58 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 355 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.9%
Every carrier on MSP to MSN, 1,136 flights
These figures cover 359 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
Delta against every carrier on MSP to MSN
Delta flew 359 of the 1,136 flights on MSP to MSN, about 32% of it. Its 83.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.1% to SkyWest at 81.3%.
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 | 359 | 83.1% | 65 min | 1.11% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 777 | 81.3% | 72 min | 0.90% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to MSN
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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 359 flights.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 82.6% 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 38 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 93.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.4%, a spread of 15 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on MSP to MSN runs when it is late
The 60 late arrivals split 17 under half an hour, 22 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 21 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early88 flights24.8%
- Within 15 min207 flights58.3%
- 15–29 min late17 flights4.8%
- 30–59 min late22 flights6.2%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights4.2%
- 2+ hours late6 flights1.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 355 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
11 of 62 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on MSP to MSN
The latest arrival of the period was on 30 October 2025, 12 hours 15 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across October, November, December and August, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 30 October 2025 | 12 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 November 2025 | 2 hours 53 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 9 November 2025 | 2 hours 45 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 December 2025 | 2 hours 31 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 August 2026 | 2 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 50% of the 3,887 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,944 of the 3,887 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,887 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.9% 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.
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 91.8% on time across 359 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. 359 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. 359 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 83.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 355 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.