Carrier route record
DLMSP→STL
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to St. Louis
- Flights
- 906
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 46%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MSP to STL lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 906 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 653 at 81.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSP to STL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 895 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
79.6%
Every carrier on MSP to STL, 1,958 flights
These figures cover 906 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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
Delta against every carrier on MSP to STL
Delta flew 906 of the 1,958 flights on MSP to STL, about 46% of it. Its 79.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 81.2% to SkyWest at 76.3%.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 653 | 81.2% | 51 min | 0.31% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 906 | 79.9% | 63 min | 1.10% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 399 | 76.3% | 85 min | 1.25% | B |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 81.2%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to STL
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Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 10 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am188 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm32 flights80.6%
- 2pm–5pm322 flights82.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am364 flights74.9%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.9% of the time, against 74.9% for the overnight window. That is 10 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to STL through the year
December is the weak month at 62.5% on time, against 92.9% in May. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.8%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on MSP to STL runs when it is late
Delta on MSP to STL often beats the schedule: 260 of 895 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 180 late arrivals split 64 under half an hour, 57 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 59 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early260 flights29.1%
- Within 15 min455 flights50.8%
- 15–29 min late64 flights7.2%
- 30–59 min late57 flights6.4%
- 1–2 hours late39 flights4.4%
- 2+ hours late20 flights2.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 895 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
25 of 164 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. 41 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on MSP to STL
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 October 2025, 12 hours 55 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 October 2025 | 12 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 September 2025 | 7 hours 44 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 December 2025 | 3 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 31 March 2026 | 3 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 October 2025 | 3 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 57% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,524 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,374 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.6% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 448 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.0% on time across 906 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 906 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on MSP to STL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 906 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 79.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 895 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to STL, every carrier
- Delta on STL to MSP, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on MSP to STL81.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to STL76.3%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- St. Louis Lambert International (STL) delay statistics
- 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
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.