Route reliability record
PHX→MSP
Phoenix to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 3,080
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,276 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,080 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,073 at 86.2% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 59 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,046 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.84%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
86.2% on time across 2,073 flights
These figures cover 3,080 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to MSP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 86.2% of the time; American Airlines manages 79.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 647 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,073 | 86.2% | 85 min | 0.68% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 74 | 82.2% | 60 min | 1.35% | B |
| American Airlines | 647 | 79.8% | 76 min | 1.08% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 284 | 72.7% | 52 min | 1.41% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 90 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Delta leads American by 6 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 17 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am405 flights94.3%
- 8am–11am822 flights86.9%
- 11am–2pm542 flights81.8%
- 2pm–5pm348 flights79.7%
- 5pm–8pm691 flights77.0%
- 8pm–5am272 flights81.6%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.3% of the time, against 77.0% for the evening window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 822 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 3,080 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
December is the weak month at 77.9% on time, against 89.2% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 337 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.5%. 7 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 39,000 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 41%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% 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 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 32 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 38,827 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, 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 16,000 of the 39,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.84%, 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 actually costs
5.6% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,276 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.9% on time across 3,081 flights, 4 points below 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,080 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 this route
Put together: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 77.0% on time against 94.3% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 17 points is the largest single thing you control here. Delta Air Lines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 3,046 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to MSP questions
How often is PHX to MSP delayed?
About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.5% of the 3,080 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to MSP?
Delta Air Lines leads at 86.2% on time across 2,073 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 79.8%, a gap of 6 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 PHX to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 77.0%, 17 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 PHX to MSP?
December is the weakest month at 77.9% on time, compared with 89.2% in April. Across the year that is 11 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 PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record82.2%
- American Airlines on-time record79.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. PHX to MSP and MSP to PHX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.