Carrier route record
DLMSP→PHL
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,211
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 60%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MSP to PHL lands a B, 4 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,211 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's MSP to PHL record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 43 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,180 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.23%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.9%
Every carrier on MSP to PHL, 2,022 flights
These figures cover 1,211 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 PHL
Delta flew 1,211 of the 2,022 flights on MSP to PHL, most of the route. Its 81.9% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 81.9% to American at 73.8%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 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 |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to PHL
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 16 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–8am304 flights90.8%
- 8am–11am164 flights88.3%
- 11am–2pm52 flights90.4%
- 2pm–5pm333 flights76.7%
- 5pm–8pm36 flights75.0%
- 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 90.8% of the time, against 74.8% for the overnight 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 333 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to PHL through the year
July is the worst month at 72.6% on time, 14 points below September, the best at 86.9%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. May was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 83.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 78.2%. 5 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 60% of the 16,000 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.
- 60%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, 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 9,545 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 15,840 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.23% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.9% 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 a little over an hour, 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 82.4% on time across 1,211 flights, within half a point 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 1,211 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 PHL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.9% on time and July 72.6%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,180 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to PHL, every carrier
- Delta on PHL to MSP, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on MSP to PHL78.3%
- American Airlines on MSP to PHL73.8%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) 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.