Route reliability record
RSW→MSP
Fort Myers to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,205
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,416 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,205 RSW to MSP flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly RSW to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.8%, against 80.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,189 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.33%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
80.2% on time across 1,205 flights
These figures cover 1,205 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on RSW to MSP
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 | 1,205 | 80.2% | 81 min | 1.33% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on RSW 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 31 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am331 flights93.2%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm140 flights76.3%
- 2pm–5pm381 flights78.6%
- 5pm–8pm291 flights73.2%
- 8pm–5am62 flights62.7%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.7% on time, against 93.2% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 381 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RSW to MSP 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 RSW to MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 62.7%, a wide gap of 30.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.2%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm76.3%
- 2–5pm78.6%
- 5–8pm73.2%
- 8pm–5am62.7%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 68.8% on time, against 96.4% in September. 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 158 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.4%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 39 to one. The split is drawn from 19,043 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,349 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.33% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.7% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,416 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 77.7% on time across 1,205 flights, within 3 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 1,205 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 96.4% on time and December 68.8%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,189 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RSW to MSP questions
How often is RSW 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 19.8% of the 1,205 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is RSW to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
80.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on RSW to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.7%, 31 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 RSW to MSP?
December is the weakest month at 68.8% on time, compared with 96.4% in September. Across the year that is 28 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 RSW — the return legseparate record
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- RSW to ORD, a related route76.4%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- RSW to ATL, a related route85.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. RSW to MSP and MSP to RSW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed RSW to MSP’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.