Route reliability record
MSP→PHL
Minneapolis to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 2,022
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 981 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,022 MSP to PHL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,211 at 81.9% on time.
Best time to fly MSP to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.8%, against 79.9% 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
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,950 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.26%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
81.9% on time across 1,211 flights
These figures cover 2,022 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to PHL
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,211 | 81.9% | 74 min | 2.23% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 57 | 78.9% | 70 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 520 | 78.3% | 119 min | 6.92% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 75.0% | 55 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 214 | 73.8% | 151 min | 1.40% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.9% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to PHL
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 Philadelphia
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSP → PHLMinneapolis to Philadelphia | Delta Air Lines | 80.1% | 81.9% | 2.23% | 5am–8am, Thu | DL 2688 06:55 |
| 2. MSP → PHLMinneapolis to Philadelphia | PSA Airlines | 72.9% | 78.3% | 6.92% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 16 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am658 flights88.4%
- 8am–11am165 flights88.3%
- 11am–2pm253 flights75.5%
- 2pm–5pm537 flights72.2%
- 5pm–8pm87 flights79.8%
- 8pm–5am322 flights74.8%
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 88.4% of the time, against 72.2% for the afternoon window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 658 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 68.6% on time, against 85.2% in May. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 209 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 77.1%. 6 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. Carrier accounts for 51% of the 38,000 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.
- 51%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, 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 19,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 37,771 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.26%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
8.8% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 981 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 runs 78.3% on time across 2,023 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,022 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 PHL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.26% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,950 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to PHL questions
How often is MSP to PHL 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 20.1% of the 2,022 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to PHL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 81.9% on time across 1,211 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 78.3%, a gap of 4 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.2%, 16 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 PHL?
December is the weakest month at 68.6% on time, compared with 85.2% in May. Across the year that is 17 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
- PHL to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to PHL81.9%
- PSA Airlines on MSP to PHL78.3%
- American Airlines on MSP to PHL73.8%
- MSP to ORD, a related route69.9%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.9%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.9%
- PSA Airlines on-time record78.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. MSP to PHL and PHL 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.