Route reliability record
SFO→MSP
San Francisco to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,927
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,589 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, about a point 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 1,927 SFO to MSP flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly SFO to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.4% of the time and Saturday flights 86.2%, against 78.6% 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
78.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,913 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.62%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
79.6% on time across 1,449 flights
These figures cover 1,927 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 SFO 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 | 1,449 | 79.6% | 60 min | 0.83% | B+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 355 | 77.1% | 63 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 123 | 71.5% | 61 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on SFO 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.
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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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights94.4%
- 8am–11am296 flights80.4%
- 11am–2pm428 flights68.6%
- 2pm–5pm453 flights69.2%
- 5pm–8pm133 flights79.5%
- 8pm–5am253 flights87.3%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 68.6% on time against 94.4% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 453 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO 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 SFO to MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.4% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 68.6%, a wide gap of 25.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.4%
- 8–11am80.4%
- 11am–2pm68.6%
- 2–5pm69.2%
- 5–8pm79.5%
- 8pm–5am87.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 37 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.
June is the worst month at 57.6% on time, 37 points below October, the best at 94.7%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 194 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 55 to one. The split is drawn from 24,858 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 94.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.62%, 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
6.3% 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 1,589 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 66.8% on time across 1,926 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,927 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. October runs 94.7% on time and June 57.6%, a swing of 37 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,913 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to MSP questions
How often is SFO 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 21.4% of the 1,927 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is SFO to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
78.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SFO to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.4% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 68.6%, 26 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 June delays on SFO to MSP?
June is the weakest month at 57.6% on time, compared with 94.7% in October. Across the year that is 37 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 SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on SFO to MSP79.6%
- United Airlines on SFO to MSP77.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on SFO to MSP71.5%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.6%
- United Airlines on-time record77.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record71.5%
- 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. SFO to MSP and MSP to SFO 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.