MSP → ORD Flight Reliability

Right now

Origin · MSPNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 07:53 UTC

Minneapolis airport profile →

Destination · ORDNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 07:51 UTC

Chicago airport profile →

Route reliability

July 2023 – July 2026

Route Reliability Score

56/ 100Fair

Better than 25% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)

Calculated from 18,306 flights. How this is calculated

On-time arrivals

75.4%

13,563 of 17,985

Cancellation rate

1.59%

291 cancelled

Median arrival delay

-5 min

Average 11.2 min

Severe delays

9.5%

60+ minutes late

Delay when late

76 min

Average, when 15+ min late

Flights analyzed

18,306

6 carriers

MSP → ORD arrives on time 75.4% of the time; the return trip, ORD → MSP, arrives on time 73.3% of the time, a 2.1-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.

MSP → ORD spends 38.9 minutes on the ground on a 334-mile trip: 19.8 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at MSP and 19.1 minutes from touchdown to gate at ORD.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

Why MSP → ORD flights are cancelled

July 2023 – July 2026

MSP → ORD cancelled 291 of 18,306 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 63. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 56.0% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 112 scheduled flights.

Share of cancellations

Weather56.0%

Airline25.4%

Air traffic18.6%

Security0.0%

Of 291 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.

What each reason means

Extreme weather1 in 112

Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.

163 cancellations, 56.0% of the total.

The airline1 in 247

Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.

74 cancellations, 25.4% of the total.

The air traffic system1 in 339

Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.

54 cancellations, 18.6% of the total.

Security—

A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.

0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.

Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.

291 coded cancellations were recorded on MSP → ORD; the section appears from 50.

When it goes wrong

July 2023 – July 2026

One arrival in ten is worse than

57 min late

against a median of 5 min early

Arrived an hour or more late9.5%

Typical delay when late76 min

Cancelled1.59%

Landed somewhere else0.16%

MSP → ORD has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 5 min early, but the worst tenth are 62 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.

Percentiles over 18,306 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.

Will your connection be tight enough?

Layovers at ORD after arriving from MSP.

Connection buffer and chance of missing by layover length, MSP → ORD arrivals
Connection time	Chance of missing	Reads as
30 min	41%	Likely to miss
45 min	24%	High risk
60 min	16%	High risk
90 min	9.3%	Some risk
120 min	6.1%	Some risk

This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.59% of the time and diverts 0.16% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.

Chance of missing is the share of 17,985 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.

The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 57 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 18,306 operations.

Any other layover length: connection checker.

Best time to fly

MSP → ORD flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 85.8% of the time, against 63.3% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 22.5 percentage points.

By day and hour

On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (MSP).

Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 10.1 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 2.2 points.

On-time arrival rate for MSP to ORD by weekday and scheduled departure hour, local time. Each button reads out one slot.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM
7 AM–8 AM
8 AM–9 AM
9 AM–10 AM
10 AM–11 AM
11 AM–12 PM
12 PM–1 PM
1 PM–2 PM
2 PM–3 PM
3 PM–4 PM
4 PM–5 PM
5 PM–6 PM
6 PM–7 PM

On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time

50–59
60–69
70–79
80–89
90–99

Fewer than 120 flights, not scored

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.

No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures before 6 AM and after 7 PM (2,149 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.

View as tableHide table

On-time arrival rate (%) with flights beneath, by scheduled departure hour and weekday for MSP to ORD. A dash means fewer than 120 flights, which are not scored.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM	83.4% on time270 flights	89.1% on time280 flights	87.7% on time257 flights	86.2% on time263 flights	79.4% on time271 flights	87.7% on time249 flights	84.5% on time262 flights
7 AM–8 AM	87.1% on time190 flights	84.0% on time189 flights	86.5% on time217 flights	81.1% on time192 flights	77.6% on time188 flights	90.9% on time146 flights	89.3% on time182 flights
8 AM–9 AM	80.1% on time154 flights	85.3% on time160 flights	90.1% on time133 flights	89.7% on time137 flights	81.1% on time146 flights	83.2% on time170 flights	80.6% on time141 flights
9 AM–10 AM	118 flights, too few to score	111 flights, too few to score	115 flights, too few to score	94.4% on time124 flights	118 flights, too few to score	82 flights, too few to score	109 flights, too few to score
10 AM–11 AM	82.4% on time265 flights	84.4% on time245 flights	82.6% on time262 flights	86.0% on time259 flights	82.5% on time261 flights	79.5% on time186 flights	81.4% on time256 flights
11 AM–12 PM	80.6% on time197 flights	85.1% on time202 flights	83.7% on time198 flights	80.3% on time194 flights	79.0% on time199 flights	85.8% on time200 flights	77.2% on time197 flights
12 PM–1 PM	40 flights, too few to score	40 flights, too few to score	43 flights, too few to score	47 flights, too few to score	42 flights, too few to score	31 flights, too few to score	44 flights, too few to score
1 PM–2 PM	74.2% on time199 flights	77.9% on time206 flights	78.2% on time188 flights	76.2% on time195 flights	71.3% on time197 flights	82.8% on time173 flights	73.9% on time195 flights
2 PM–3 PM	55 flights, too few to score	44 flights, too few to score	46 flights, too few to score	58 flights, too few to score	61 flights, too few to score	46 flights, too few to score	59 flights, too few to score
3 PM–4 PM	67.1% on time328 flights	65.7% on time321 flights	65.5% on time334 flights	60.9% on time322 flights	63.6% on time327 flights	68.0% on time331 flights	66.1% on time325 flights
4 PM–5 PM	107 flights, too few to score	108 flights, too few to score	106 flights, too few to score	101 flights, too few to score	99 flights, too few to score	87 flights, too few to score	93 flights, too few to score
5 PM–6 PM	64.0% on time228 flights	65.5% on time195 flights	54.7% on time203 flights	56.8% on time232 flights	61.5% on time234 flights	65.3% on time146 flights	60.9% on time241 flights
6 PM–7 PM	73.2% on time250 flights	65.2% on time210 flights	62.0% on time227 flights	51.4% on time253 flights	59.9% on time245 flights	76.8% on time174 flights	66.4% on time226 flights

By departure window

5–9 AM85.8%

9 AM–12 PM83.6%

12–3 PM74.2%

3–6 PM63.3%

6–9 PM66.1%

9 PM–5 AM73.4%

By departure hour

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

9 PM

Why MSP → ORD runs late

July 2023 – July 2026

Air traffic control33.8%

airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control

Late-arriving aircraft32.3%

the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late

The airline28.1%

crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control

Weather5.7%

weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically

Security<0.1%

screening or terminal security incidents

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for MSP → ORD. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

How this route holds up in bad weather

July 2023 – July 2026

The harder-hit end is ORD, where the flight lands. Its figure counts departures from ORD, so it says more about how that airport copes than about this route. Bad weather cancels 5.5 times the normal rate at ORD against 3.1 times at MSP. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: MSP 2.4% against 0.8%, ORD 6.5% against 1.2%. Flights that did leave ORD in bad weather arrived on time 55.7% of the time, against 77.1% in normal hours.

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026

Departures from MSP and ORD in hours of bad weather and in normal hours
Departures from	MSP	ORD
Cancelled in bad weather	2.4%	6.5%
Cancelled in normal hours	0.8%	1.2%
Arrived on time, bad weather	65.6%	55.7%
Arrived on time, normal hours	83.5%	77.1%
Departures in bad weather	42,174	104,455

Of the carriers on this route, Delta Air Lines (1.7% cancelled against 3.1% for the other carriers at MSP) cancelled the fewest departures from MSP in bad weather and Republic Airways (5.9% cancelled against 2.8% for the other carriers at MSP) the most. One more carrier flies this route but has too few bad-weather departures from MSP to compare.

This route’s airlines in bad weather at MSP

All departures from MSP

Cancellation rates in bad weather at MSP for the airlines that fly MSP to ORD, against the other carriers at MSP in the same months
Airline	Bad-weather departures	Cancelled	Other carriers
Delta Air Lines	23,295	1.7%below the others	3.1%
United Airlines	1,807	2.0%about level	2.3%
American Airlines	1,600	2.5%about level	2.3%
SkyWest Airlines	9,126	3.8%above the others	2.2%
Republic Airways	543	5.9%above the others	2.8%

These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from MSP and ORD, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from MSP on every route.

Weather source and limits. In full: MSP (airlines), ORD, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.

Airlines on this route

Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.

Airlines on this route
Carrier	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Severe
United Airlines	7,049	76.3%	1.21%	-3 min	8.5%
Delta Air Lines	5,327	74.2%	1.24%	-5 min	9.8%
Envoy Air	2,547	74.1%	1.85%	-6 min	9.7%
Republic Airways	1,122	79.1%	4.46%	-11 min	10.0%
SkyWest Airlines	1,092	70.9%	2.75%	0 min	12.9%
American Airlines	1,090	80.3%	1.01%	-10 min	8.8%

United Airlines flew 38.7% of the 18,227 flights listed. Republic Airways cancelled 4.46% of its flights here against 1.01% for American Airlines.

American Airlines arrived on time 9.4 percentage points more often than SkyWest Airlines on this route.

Flights on this route

Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.

Flights on this route
Flight	Scheduled	Operations	On time
UA658 United Airlines	5:15 PM	1,056	63.7%
DL1544 Delta Air Lines	6:55 AM	690	81.4%
DL1533 Delta Air Lines	1:20 PM	626	76.0%

DL1544 (6:55 AM) arrived on time 81.4% of the time, 17.7 points more often than UA658 (5:15 PM) at 63.7%.

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

Mon75.9%

Tue77.4%

Wed76.1%

Thu73.2%

Fri71.9%

Sat79.1%

Sun74.9%

Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 7.2 percentage points.

By month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

July is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 15.6 percentage points.

Reliability over time

July 2023 – July 2026

24

25

26

Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 70.5% against 77.6% in the 12 months before — declining by 7.1 percentage points.

Data and methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 18,306 MSP → ORD flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.

Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem

Analysis last recomputed September 26, 2026

MSP airport ORD airport Return direction ORD → MSP

MSP→ORD

Right now

Route reliability

Why MSP → ORD flights are cancelled

Share of cancellations

What each reason means

When it goes wrong

Will your connection be tight enough?

Best time to fly

By day and hour

By departure window

By departure hour

Why MSP → ORD runs late

How this route holds up in bad weather

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

This route’s airlines in bad weather at MSP

Airlines on this route

Flights on this route

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

By month

Reliability over time

Data and methodology