Route reliability record
MSP→SLC
Minneapolis to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 1,616
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 991 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 50 minutes. That rests on 1,616 MSP to SLC flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to SLC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.5%, against 85.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 78 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,608 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
85.1% on time across 1,616 flights
These figures cover 1,616 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 SLC
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 | 1,616 | 85.1% | 50 min | 0.43% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to SLC
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 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am115 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am253 flights92.5%
- 11am–2pm366 flights89.8%
- 2pm–5pm364 flights82.5%
- 5pm–8pm363 flights78.8%
- 8pm–5am155 flights81.3%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 92.5% of the time, against 78.8% for the evening window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 366 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP to SLC 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 SLC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 92.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 78.8%, a wide gap of 13.7 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am87.7%
- 8–11am92.5%
- 11am–2pm89.8%
- 2–5pm82.5%
- 5–8pm78.8%
- 8pm–5am81.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 70.1% on time, against 95.2% 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. August was the busiest month here, with 152 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 82.8%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 59% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,104 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,984 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.43%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 991 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.
The return leg runs 86.4% on time across 1,609 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,616 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 SLC 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 95.2% on time and December 70.1%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,608 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to SLC questions
How often is MSP to SLC delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.9% of the 1,616 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is MSP to SLC compared with the rest of the country?
85.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to SLC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 92.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 78.8%, 14 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 SLC?
December is the weakest month at 70.1% on time, compared with 95.2% in April. Across the year that is 25 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
- SLC to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.1%
- 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 SLC and SLC 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.