Route reliability record

MSP→PHX

Minneapolis to Phoenix

Flights: 3,081
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 1,276 mi
Carriers: 5

This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 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 3,081 flights, of which American Airlines flew 647 at 79.1% on time.

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.

On time

79.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,047 completed flights

Avg delay

72 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.84%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

American

79.1% on time across 647 flights

These figures cover 3,081 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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

Which airline is most reliable on MSP to PHX

The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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.

On-time performance by carrier on MSP to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	2	100.0%	—	50.00%	A−
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	284	88.3%	52 min	0.35%	A+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	74	84.9%	147 min	1.35%	B
American Airlines	647	79.1%	96 min	1.39%	B
Delta Air Lines	2,074	78.8%	64 min	0.68%	B+

No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 79.1%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

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 15 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–8am802 flights86.1%
8am–11am417 flights81.1%
11am–2pm512 flights82.4%
2pm–5pm676 flights77.1%
5pm–8pm387 flights71.0%
8pm–5am287 flights75.1%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.1% of the time, against 71.0% for the evening window. That is 15 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 802 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 23 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, December worst

December is the weak month at 64.9% on time, against 87.6% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 337 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.4%. 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 58% of the 44,000 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.

Carrier
58%
Late-arriving aircraft
22%
National Airspace System
17%
Extreme weather
3%

The largest share of delay minutes, 58%, 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 25,000 of the 44,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 43,741 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.84%, 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 actually costs

6.3% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 1,276 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 83.5% on time across 3,080 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 3,081 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 this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 87.6% on time and December 64.9%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 3,047 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

MSP to PHX questions

How often is MSP to PHX delayed?

About one flight in five arrive 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 3,081 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on MSP to PHX?

American Airlines leads at 79.1% on time across 647 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 78.8%, a gap of half a point. 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 PHX?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.0%, 15 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 PHX?

December is the weakest month at 64.9% on time, compared with 87.6% in September. Across the year that is 23 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. MSP to PHX and PHX to MSP are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures