Route profile
SFO→MSP
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from San Francisco to Minneapolis, 1,589 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 88% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 5,973 flights. How this is calculated
SFO → MSP arrives on time 84.4% of the time; the return trip, MSP → SFO, arrives on time 75.4% of the time, an 8.9-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
SFO → MSP spends 25.1 minutes on the ground on a 1,589-mile trip: 18.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SFO and 6.6 minutes from touchdown to gate at MSP.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
30 min late
against a median of 10 min early
Percentiles over 5,973 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at MSP after arriving from SFO.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 30% | High risk |
| 45 min | 15% | High risk |
| 60 min | 9.6% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 5.1% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 2.9% | Low 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 0.65% of the time and diverts 0.18% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 5,923 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 30 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 5,973 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
SFO → MSP flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 93.7% of the time, against 77.7% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 16.0 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM: 90.1% on time from 809 flights
- 1 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 95.7% on time from 1,035 flights
- 7 AM: too few flights to score
- 8 AM: 87.5% on time from 346 flights
- 9 AM: too few flights to score
- 10 AM: 78.7% on time from 250 flights
- 11 AM: 82.0% on time from 320 flights
- 12 PM: 79.3% on time from 1,123 flights
- 1 PM: 71.8% on time from 158 flights
- 2 PM: too few flights to score
- 3 PM: 78.3% on time from 906 flights
- 4 PM: 76.3% on time from 336 flights
- 5 PM: too few flights to score
- 6 PM: 83.4% on time from 417 flights
- 7 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why SFO → MSP runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for SFO → MSP. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on SFO → MSP, at 49.8%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 93.7% of the time and 3–6 PM departures 77.7%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 4,564 | 85.3% | 0.68% | -10 min | 4.6% |
| United Airlines | 796 | 81.1% | 0.63% | -11 min | 7.9% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 613 | 81.5% | 0.49% | -11 min | 6.1% |
Delta Air Lines flew 76.4% of the 5,973 flights listed.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 4.2 percentage points more often than United Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 5.8 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 88.8%
- Feb: 89.0%
- Mar: 80.4%
- Apr: 81.5%
- May: 80.8%
- Jun: 75.7%
- Jul: 78.9%
- Aug: 86.9%
- Sep: 88.5%
- Oct: 93.7%
- Nov: 87.6%
- Dec: 84.5%
June is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 18.0 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 84.9% from 197 flights
- August 2023: 89.0% from 174 flights
- September 2023: 90.9% from 165 flights
- October 2023: 92.2% from 168 flights
- November 2023: 91.2% from 148 flights
- December 2023: 84.7% from 150 flights
- January 2024: 87.2% from 133 flights
- February 2024: 90.2% from 125 flights
- March 2024: 70.4% from 144 flights
- April 2024: 72.4% from 145 flights
- May 2024: 84.6% from 150 flights
- June 2024: 80.0% from 170 flights
- July 2024: 76.5% from 200 flights
- August 2024: 84.9% from 186 flights
- September 2024: 91.6% from 166 flights
- October 2024: 94.0% from 201 flights
- November 2024: 85.3% from 164 flights
- December 2024: 88.6% from 158 flights
- January 2025: 91.2% from 136 flights
- February 2025: 87.8% from 131 flights
- March 2025: 87.8% from 148 flights
- April 2025: 90.0% from 160 flights
- May 2025: 83.6% from 166 flights
- June 2025: 90.1% from 182 flights
- July 2025: 89.4% from 193 flights
- August 2025: 87.2% from 180 flights
- September 2025: 82.8% from 157 flights
- October 2025: 94.7% from 170 flights
- November 2025: 86.4% from 148 flights
- December 2025: 79.4% from 139 flights
- January 2026: 88.0% from 143 flights
- February 2026: 89.0% from 128 flights
- March 2026: 82.6% from 143 flights
- April 2026: 81.3% from 166 flights
- May 2026: 74.5% from 168 flights
- June 2026: 57.6% from 184 flights
- July 2026: 64.7% from 187 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 80.0% against 88.7% in the 12 months before — declining by 8.7 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 5,973 SFO → MSP 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
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed