Route reliability record
STL→MSP
St. Louis to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,896
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 448 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,896 STL to MSP flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 886 at 84.1% on time.
Best time to fly STL to MSP: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.5%, against 79.8% 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
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,877 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
84.1% on time across 886 flights
These figures cover 1,896 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on STL to MSP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 84.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 76.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 651 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 886 | 84.1% | 90 min | 1.13% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 651 | 76.0% | 53 min | 0.31% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 359 | 75.9% | 106 min | 1.67% | B |
Delta leads Southwest by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on STL 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 St. Louis 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. STL → MSPSt. Louis to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 83.1% | 84.1% | 1.13% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 1597 06:00 |
| 2. STL → MSPSt. Louis to Minneapolis | Southwest Airlines | 75.8% | 76.0% | 0.31% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 27 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am366 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am304 flights90.4%
- 11am–2pm314 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm280 flights74.6%
- 5pm–8pm314 flights78.7%
- 8pm–5am318 flights63.0%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.0% on time, against 90.4% for the 8am–11am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 366 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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 68.6% on time, against 87.8% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 186 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.1%. 13 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 44% of the 30,000 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.
- 44%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
37% 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 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 29,766 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, 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 13,000 of the 30,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.9% 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 last a little over 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 runs 79.5% on time across 1,896 flights, within half a point 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 1,896 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. May runs 87.8% on time and December 68.6%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,877 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
STL to MSP questions
How often is STL 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 20.2% of the 1,896 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 STL to MSP?
Delta Air Lines leads at 84.1% on time across 886 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 76.0%, 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 STL to MSP?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.0%, 27 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 STL to MSP?
December is the weakest month at 68.6% on time, compared with 87.8% in May. Across the year that is 19 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 STL — the return legseparate record
- St. Louis Lambert International (STL) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on STL to MSP84.1%
- Southwest Airlines on STL to MSP76.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on STL to MSP75.9%
- STL to ATL, a related route85.3%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.7%
- STL to DEN, a related route74.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record84.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record75.9%
- 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. STL to MSP and MSP to STL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed STL 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.