Carrier route record
OHMSP→PHL
PSA Airlines · Minneapolis to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 520
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 26%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on MSP to PHL lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 520 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate PSA on MSP to PHL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 483 completed flights
Avg delay
119 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.92%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.9%
Every carrier on MSP to PHL, 2,022 flights
These figures cover 520 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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
PSA against every carrier on MSP to PHL
PSA flew 520 of the 2,022 flights on MSP to PHL, about 26% of it. Its 78.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three 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 | 1,211 | 81.9% | 74 min | 2.23% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 57 | 78.9% | 70 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 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 |
Departure window
When PSA runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 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–8am234 flights85.7%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm173 flights70.8%
- 2pm–5pm62 flights66.7%
- 5pm–8pm50 flights83.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.7% of the time, against 66.7% for the afternoon window. That is 19 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 234 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on MSP to PHL through the year
December is the weak month at 61.1% on time, against 87.7% in June. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 84 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.6%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 41%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 12,506 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, 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 5,092 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 6.92%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.4% on time across 522 flights, 4 points below 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 520 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 PSA on MSP to PHL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.92% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 483 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to PHL, every carrier
- PSA on PHL to MSP, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to PHL81.9%
- American Airlines on MSP to PHL73.8%
- PSA Airlines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.