Carrier route record
DLMSP→PHX
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Phoenix
- Flights
- 2,074
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 67%
- 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 PHX lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,074 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSP to PHX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,055 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.68%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.9%
Every carrier on MSP to PHX, 3,081 flights
These figures cover 2,074 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 PHX
Delta flew 2,074 of the 3,081 flights on MSP to PHX, most of the route. Its 78.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to Delta at 78.8%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 (this page) | 2,074 | 78.8% | 64 min | 0.68% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to PHX
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am365 flights87.3%
- 8am–11am367 flights80.3%
- 11am–2pm364 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm356 flights77.3%
- 5pm–8pm365 flights70.6%
- 8pm–5am257 flights76.2%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.3% of the time, against 70.6% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 367 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to PHX through the year
December is the weak month at 63.4% on time, against 87.4% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 208 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.6%. 7 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 58% of the 28,000 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.
- 58%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
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 16,000 of the 28,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 27,694 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.68%, 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 costs
6.7% 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 about 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. 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 86.2% on time across 2,073 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,074 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 PHX
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. June runs 87.4% on time and December 63.4%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,055 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to PHX, every carrier
- Delta on PHX to MSP, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on MSP to PHX88.3%
- American Airlines on MSP to PHX79.1%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) 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.