Carrier route record

DLMSP→SFO

Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to San Francisco

Flights: 1,445
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 75%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on MSP to SFO sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,445 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Delta on MSP to SFO runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 75 extra late arrivals.

On time

70.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,433 completed flights

Avg delay

53 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.76%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

70.5%

Every carrier on MSP to SFO, 1,919 flights

These figures cover 1,445 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on MSP to SFO

Delta flew 1,445 of the 1,919 flights on MSP to SFO, most of the route. Its 70.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 70.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 72.3% to SkyWest at 70.0%. Two 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.

On-time performance by carrier on MSP to SFO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlinesthin sample	301	72.3%	76 min	0.33%	C+
Delta Air Lines (this page)	1,445	70.1%	53 min	0.76%	C+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	173	70.0%	69 min	0.58%	C+

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on MSP to SFO

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 1,445 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am360 flights70.2%
11am–2pm360 flights72.5%
2pm–5pm187 flights75.9%
5pm–8pm324 flights66.6%
8pm–5am214 flights66.4%

Scale runs 60% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 75.9% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 66.4%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 360 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on MSP to SFO through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, June worst

June is the worst month at 38.5% on time, 50 points below September, the best at 88.2%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 139 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.6%. 16 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. National Airspace System accounts for 52% of the 23,000 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.

National Airspace System
52%
Carrier
34%
Late-arriving aircraft
13%
Extreme weather
1%

52% 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 12,000 minutes out of 23,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 22,513 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.76%, 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

7.9% 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 roughly 55 minutes, 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 83.3% on time across 1,445 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 1,445 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 SFO

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.2% on time and June 38.5%, a swing of 50 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,433 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures