Route reliability record
MSP→SFO
Minneapolis to San Francisco
- Flights
- 1,919
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,589 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,919 MSP to SFO flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to SFO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 78.0%, against 70.5% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 71 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,903 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.68%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
70.1% on time across 1,445 flights
These figures cover 1,919 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to SFO
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 301 | 72.3% | 76 min | 0.33% | C+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,445 | 70.1% | 53 min | 0.76% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 173 | 70.0% | 69 min | 0.58% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to SFO
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.
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 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–8am113 flights83.0%
- 8am–11am404 flights66.5%
- 11am–2pm360 flights72.5%
- 2pm–5pm374 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm454 flights68.2%
- 8pm–5am214 flights66.4%
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 83.0% of the time, against 66.4% for the overnight 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 454 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 46 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 89.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 193 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.7%. 14 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. National Airspace System accounts for 54% of the 32,000 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.
- 54%National Airspace System
- 28%Carrier
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
54% 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 17,000 minutes out of 32,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 32,311 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 actually costs
8.9% 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.
At 1,589 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 82.5% on time across 1,919 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 1,919 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 SFO 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 89.2% on time and May 43.0%, a swing of 46 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,903 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to SFO questions
How often is MSP to SFO delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.5% of the 1,919 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to SFO compared with the rest of the country?
70.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 7 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to SFO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.4%, 17 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 May delays on MSP to SFO?
May is the weakest month at 43.0% on time, compared with 89.2% in September. Across the year that is 46 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
- SFO to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- United Airlines on MSP to SFO72.3%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to SFO70.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to SFO70.0%
- MSP to ORD, a related route69.9%
- LAX to SFO, a related route64.8%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.6%
- United Airlines on-time record72.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record70.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record70.0%
- 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
Direction matters. MSP to SFO and SFO 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.