Route reliability record
MSP→SFO
Minneapolis to San Francisco
- Flights
- 1,926
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,589 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route draws a C+. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about 55 minutes behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 1,926 MSP to SFO flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
Best time to fly MSP to SFO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.5% of the time and Saturday flights 75.9%, against 66.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 105 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
66.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,910 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.67%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
65.4% on time across 1,449 flights
These figures cover 1,926 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 | 356 | 74.6% | 75 min | 0.28% | C+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,449 | 65.4% | 50 min | 0.76% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 121 | 60.2% | 66 min | 0.83% | D+ |
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.
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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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am140 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am404 flights60.2%
- 11am–2pm360 flights65.7%
- 2pm–5pm350 flights68.3%
- 5pm–8pm454 flights67.3%
- 8pm–5am218 flights63.3%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.5% of the time, against 60.2% for the morning window. That is 28 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.
Explore
Filter MSP to SFO 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 SFO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.5% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 60.2%, a wide gap of 28.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.5%
- 8–11am60.2%
- 11am–2pm65.7%
- 2–5pm68.3%
- 5–8pm67.3%
- 8pm–5am63.3%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
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. August was the busiest month here, with 193 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 75.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 61.2%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 61% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
- 0%Extreme weather
61% 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 21,000 minutes out of 35,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 34,676 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.67%, 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
9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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 78.6% on time across 1,927 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 1,926 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. 1,910 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to SFO questions
How often is MSP to SFO delayed?
About 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 33.2% of the 1,926 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is MSP to SFO compared with the rest of the country?
66.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 11 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 88.5% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 60.2%, 28 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 SFO74.6%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to SFO65.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to SFO60.2%
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- United Airlines on-time record74.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record65.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record60.2%
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.