Carrier route record
DLMSP→PDX
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Portland
- Flights
- 1,329
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 88%
- 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 PDX lands a B+, 4 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 roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,329 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSP to PDX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,323 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.45%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.6%
Every carrier on MSP to PDX, 1,512 flights
These figures cover 1,329 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 PDX
Delta flew 1,329 of the 1,512 flights on MSP to PDX, most of the route. Its 81.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 85.0% to Delta at 81.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 183 | 85.0% | 64 min | 1.64% | A |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,329 | 81.1% | 52 min | 0.45% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to PDX
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 24 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–8am—
- 8am–11am225 flights89.7%
- 11am–2pm354 flights86.7%
- 2pm–5pm321 flights79.7%
- 5pm–8pm355 flights74.5%
- 8pm–5am74 flights66.2%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.7% of the time, against 66.2% for the overnight window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 355 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to PDX through the year
December is the weak month at 49.5% on time, against 95.3% in September. 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 150 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.5%. 6 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 49% of the 13,000 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.
- 49%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, 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 6,321 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,871 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.45%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.7% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,426 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 90.8% on time across 1,330 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,329 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on MSP to PDX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 95.3% on time and December 49.5%, a swing of 46 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,323 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to PDX, every carrier
- Delta on PDX to MSP, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on MSP to PDX85.0%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Portland International (PDX) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.