Route reliability record
MSP→PHX
Minneapolis to Phoenix
- Flights
- 2,974
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,276 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B+, 3 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 2,974 MSP to PHX flights, of which American Airlines flew 619 at 79.6% on time.
Best time to fly MSP to PHX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.6% of the time and Saturday flights 84.1%, against 80.3% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,938 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.91%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
79.6% on time across 619 flights
These figures cover 2,974 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 50.00% | A− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 227 | 87.1% | 52 min | 0.44% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 82 | 86.4% | 147 min | 1.22% | A |
| American Airlines | 619 | 79.6% | 92 min | 1.45% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,044 | 79.5% | 63 min | 0.73% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 79.6%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to PHX
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Minneapolis to Phoenix
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 → PHXMinneapolis to Phoenix | Delta Air Lines | 78.9% | 79.5% | 0.73% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 2274 11:32 |
| 2. MSP → PHXMinneapolis to Phoenix | American Airlines | 78.4% | 79.6% | 1.45% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am770 flights86.6%
- 8am–11am392 flights79.9%
- 11am–2pm493 flights81.7%
- 2pm–5pm675 flights77.7%
- 5pm–8pm387 flights73.7%
- 8pm–5am257 flights76.5%
Scale runs 65% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.6% of the time, against 73.7% for the evening window. That is 13 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 770 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP to PHX by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On MSP to PHX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 73.7%, a wide gap of 12.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.6%
- 8–11am79.9%
- 11am–2pm81.7%
- 2–5pm77.7%
- 5–8pm73.7%
- 8pm–5am76.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
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.
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, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.9%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 57% of the 40,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 23,000 of the 40,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 40,446 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.91% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.9% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.7% on time across 2,974 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,974 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 PHX after this flight
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. 2,938 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.7% of the 2,974 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 79.6% on time across 619 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 79.5%, 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 86.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.7%, 13 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.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on MSP to PHX87.1%
- American Airlines on MSP to PHX79.6%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to PHX79.5%
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record87.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record86.4%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.
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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.