Carrier route record
DLMSP→PHL
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,217
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 58%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,217 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 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 40 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,178 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.88%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
79.4%
Every carrier on MSP to PHL, 2,085 flights
These figures cover 1,217 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on MSP to PHL
Delta flew 1,217 of the 2,085 flights on MSP to PHL, most of the route. Its 81.3% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 79.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 81.5% to American at 73.1%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 83 | 81.5% | 79 min | 2.41% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,217 | 81.3% | 75 min | 2.88% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 617 | 77.1% | 113 min | 6.97% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 75.0% | 55 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 148 | 73.1% | 136 min | 1.35% | C |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to PHL
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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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am310 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am107 flights88.7%
- 11am–2pm109 flights81.3%
- 2pm–5pm333 flights75.8%
- 5pm–8pm36 flights75.0%
- 8pm–5am322 flights75.5%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 75.0% for the evening window. That is 17 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 70.0% on time, 17 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 78.0%, a spread of 7 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on MSP to PHL runs when it is late
Delta on MSP to PHL often beats the schedule: 401 of 1,178 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 220 late arrivals split 57 under half an hour, 75 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 88 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early401 flights34.0%
- Within 15 min557 flights47.3%
- 15–29 min late57 flights4.8%
- 30–59 min late75 flights6.4%
- 1–2 hours late61 flights5.2%
- 2+ hours late27 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,178 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
25 of 204 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 12% of them. 41 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on MSP to PHL
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 January 2026, 14 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 January 2026 | 14 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 January 2026 | 12 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 February 2026 | 11 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 August 2026 | 5 hours 19 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 29 July 2026 | 4 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 55% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 18%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,081 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,507 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.88%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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 costs
7.5% 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 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.
The return leg runs 82.0% on time across 1,217 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 1,217 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 delay figures matter less here than the 2.88% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 1,178 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 PHL77.1%
- American Airlines on MSP to PHL73.1%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.