Route reliability record
MSP→SAN
Minneapolis to San Diego
- Flights
- 1,300
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,532 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average. That rests on 1,300 MSP to SAN flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to SAN: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.9%, against 77.6% 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
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,282 completed flights
Avg delay
46 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.85%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
77.6% on time across 1,300 flights
These figures cover 1,300 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 SAN
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 | 1,300 | 77.6% | 46 min | 0.85% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to SAN
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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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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am365 flights82.6%
- 11am–2pm356 flights77.5%
- 2pm–5pm9 flights—
- 5pm–8pm364 flights70.9%
- 8pm–5am206 flights79.8%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.6% of the time, against 70.9% for the evening window. That is 12 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP to SAN 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 SAN, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 82.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 70.9%, a wide gap of 11.7 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am82.6%
- 11am–2pm77.5%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm70.9%
- 8pm–5am79.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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 56.0% on time, against 89.7% in April. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 119 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.9%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%National Airspace System
- 37%Carrier
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,940 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 13,302 reported delay minutes.
39% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 5,178 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.85%, below the national 1.89% 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
5.1% 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 roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,532 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 89.1% on time across 1,300 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,300 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 SAN 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. April runs 89.7% on time and December 56.0%, a swing of 34 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,282 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to SAN questions
How often is MSP to SAN delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.4% of the 1,300 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is MSP to SAN compared with the rest of the country?
77.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to SAN?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 82.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 70.9%, 12 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 SAN?
December is the weakest month at 56.0% on time, compared with 89.7% in April. Across the year that is 34 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
- SAN to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- SFO to SAN, a related route62.2%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.6%
- 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 SAN and SAN 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.