Route reliability record
PHL→MSP
Philadelphia to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 2,023
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 981 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,023 PHL to MSP flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,211 at 82.4% on time.
Best time to fly PHL to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.8%, against 78.3% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,947 completed flights
Avg delay
106 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.56%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
82.4% on time across 1,211 flights
These figures cover 2,023 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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 PHL to MSP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 82.4% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 74.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 522 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,211 | 82.4% | 130 min | 2.31% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 57 | 77.2% | 71 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 522 | 74.4% | 84 min | 7.85% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 213 | 65.6% | 89 min | 1.41% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 65.0% | 45 min | 0.00% | C+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.8% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on PHL to MSP
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Philadelphia to Minneapolis
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHL → MSPPhiladelphia to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 80.5% | 82.4% | 2.31% | 11am–2pm, Wed | DL 2688 11:27 |
| 2. PHL → MSPPhiladelphia to Minneapolis | PSA Airlines | 68.6% | 74.4% | 7.85% | 5pm–8pm, Fri | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 21 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am365 flights87.4%
- 8am–11am252 flights77.1%
- 11am–2pm444 flights82.9%
- 2pm–5pm295 flights81.0%
- 5pm–8pm448 flights70.4%
- 8pm–5am219 flights66.2%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.4% of the time, against 66.2% for the overnight window. That is 21 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 448 flights scheduled in it.
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.
July is the worst month at 62.0% on time, 25 points below May, the best at 87.2%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 209 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 74.0%. 10 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. Carrier accounts for 48% of the 45,000 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.
- 48%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 45,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 44,976 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 22,000 of the 45,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.56%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 981 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 79.9% on time across 2,022 flights, within 2 points 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 2,023 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 MSP after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.56% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,947 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to MSP questions
How often is PHL to MSP delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.7% of the 2,023 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to MSP?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.4% on time across 1,211 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 74.4%, a gap of 8 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHL to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.2%, 21 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 July delays on PHL to MSP?
July is the weakest month at 62.0% on time, compared with 87.2% in May. 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
- MSP to PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on PHL to MSP82.4%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to MSP74.4%
- American Airlines on PHL to MSP65.6%
- PHL to ATL, a related route79.2%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.7%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record74.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to MSP and MSP to PHL 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.