Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport is located 13 miles Southeast of Downtown Minneapolis and 9 miles Southwest of Downtown St. Paul, within the City of St. Paul, in the state of Minnesota. It is Delta Airlines’ 2nd largest hub by passengers carried (using data between April 2024 and April 2025) and serves as a gateway to the Midwest and Great Plains US from domestic points as well as Europe and Asia. In the article below, we will look at the ins and outs of the Minneapolis hub from both its local dynamics to the need it fulfills for Delta itself.
About the Twin Cities
Minneapolis and St. Paul are the largest cities in the State of Minnesota and the primary economic center of the Upper Midwest. The Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan area is home to large populations from Southeast Asia and Africa, and has the nation’s largest Hmong and Somali populations. According to data.census.gov, in 2023, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Area is home to 395,223 foreign-born residents. Minneapolis/St. Paul is the 22nd largest concentration of foreign-born residents in the US by metropolitan area. The Twin Cities’ largest immigrant groups by country were Mexico, India, Somalia, Laos, and Liberia. The population of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metro Area grew by 71,977 or 1.9% between 2019 and 2023.
The Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Area had a GDP of $286.7 billion as of 2023. This represents a 3.8% growth between 2021 and 2023.
About Delta's Hub at MSP
- Population within 100 KM of MSP: 4.21 Million
- Total passenger count at MSP between April 2024 and April 2025: 35,456,799
- Total passengers carried by DL and its regional subsidiaries: 24,815,603
- Percentage of traffic at MSP carried by DL: 70.0%
Destinations Served...
At the present time, DL serves 115 domestic and 28 international destinations at its hub in MSP. Of those, 95 domestic and 14 international have year-round service and fly at least four times a week.
Delta’s Overall Load Factor at MSP was 84.09% between April 2024 and April 2025. The highest LF routes from MSP on DL were (must have at least 36 yearly departures):
First the highest...
- Seattle (SEA): 91.42%
- Portland (PDX): 90.57%
- Honolulu (HNL): 90.07
- Santa Ana (SNA): 89.04%
- Anchorage (ANC): 88.73%
- New York City (LGA): 88.65%
- Salt Lake City (SLC): 88.23%
- San Juan (SJU): 88.08%
- Newark (EWR): 88.07%
- Syracuse (SYR): 88.02%
and the lowest...
- Rochester, MN (RST): 62.56%
- Marquette, MI (MQT): 60.68%
- Sault Ste. Marie (CIU): 59.81%
- Aberdeen, SD (ABR): 55.74%
- Rhinelander, WI (RHI): 52.08%
- Iron Mountain, MI (IMT): 45.42%
- Brainerd, MN (BRD): 39.47%
- International Falls, MN (INL): 38.70%
- Escanaba, MI (ESC): 37.11%
- Hibbing, MN (HIB): 28.06%
Connectivity
15,321 passengers connect at MSP on DL daily each way. Of those, 13,769 were making purely domestic connections, and 1,552 were making connections with an international component. These figures mostly represent Delta and its marketed flights, but also those that fly into MSP on another carrier to connect to Delta.
Fleet Breakdown at DL's MSP Hub
Broken down by aircraft type, in April 2025, the following number of departures took off from MSP on Delta or regional partners per day. 196 were operated by DL directly, and 111 were operated by regional partners. This makes a 63.8% Mainline operation with 307 daily departures.
Minneapolis as an O&D Market for DL
Delta flies 17,022 O&D passengers from DTW daily non-directional averaged between April 2024 and April 2025 (PDEW).
- Of the 18,101 total O&D passengers, 16,152 passengers carried by DL to/from MSP are Domestic O&D
- This is up by 1,228 or 6.8% since 2019
- Below are the largest domestic O&D markets by passengers carried by Delta to/from MSP.
Domestic O&D to/from MSP by DL Hub...
- Los Angeles (LAX): 558
- Boston (BOS): 487
- Atlanta (ATL): 484
- Seattle (SEA): 355
- Detroit (DTW): 329
- Salt Lake City (SLC): 243
- New York City (JFK): 139
...and by non-DL Hub
- Phoenix (PHX): 714
- Orlando (MCO): 671
- Las Vegas (LAS): 558
- Denver (DEN): 501
- New York (LGA): 481
- Fort Myers (RSW): 451
- San Francisco (SFO): 404
- Tampa (TPA): 384
- Seattle (SEA): 355
- Chicago (ORD): 350
- Washington, DC (DCA): 348
- San Diego (SAN): 342
- Dallas (DFW): 335
- Nashville (BNA): 306
- Fort Lauderdale (FLL): 260
- Portland (PDX): 246
- Houston (IAH): 244
- Miami (MIA): 239
- Newark (EWR): 234
- Austin (AUS): 233
- DL flies 1,948 international O&D passengers daily, averaged non-directionally to/from MSP (PDEW).
- This is up 471 since 2019 and represents a 24.2% growth since then.
- Below are the largest international O&D markets by passengers carried by Delta to/from MSP.
Top International Leisure Destinations by O&D...
- Cancun (CUN): 268
- Punta Cana (PUJ): 80
- San Jose del Cabo (SJD): 72
- Puero Vallarta (PVR): 72
- Montego Bay (MBJ): 53
...and top non-Leisure Based International Destinations.
- Amsterdam (AMS): 87
- London (LHR): 84
- Toronto (YYZ): 65
- Winnipeg (YWG): 56
- Calgary (YYC): 56
- Tokyo (HND): 55
- Mexico City (MEX): 53
- Nairobi (NBO): 49
- Paris (CDG): 49
- Dublin (DUB): 48
Largest Markets Unserved by DL at MSP: Domestic
- Phoenix (AZA): 97
- Albuquerque (ABQ): 92
- Buffalo (BUF): 77
- Kahului (OGG): 76
- Houston (HOU): 63
Largest Markets Unserved by DL at MSP: International
- Nairobi (NBO): 76
- Frankfurt (FRA): 56
- San Jose (SJO): 34
- Barcelona (BCN): 31
- Athens (ATH): 31
The Present and Future of Delta's hub at MSP, what is and what is possible.
MSP’s primary purpose is to connect people between West and East and to smaller destinations in the Upper Midwest, Mountain West, and Northwest, but that it also maintains a smaller role in connecting people to Canada, Europe, and to a lesser degree Asia. So what potential does this give Delta for the future of the MSP hub?
Where Midwest meets Mountain West
The Twin Cities have a unique geography. It allows it to serve cities not just in the Midwest, but also in the Mountain West and Northeast, with any size of aircraft. Many of the cities served from MSP by DL are only served by MSP. These usually command high fares due to the lack of competition, but are not large enough to be served from other DL hubs. MSP’s geography has allowed it to serve in a capacity where there is little competition, not just from other DL hubs, but from any other airline hub. Its geography places it well for connections to Europe from the West of the Mississippi and Asia from the East of the Mississippi.
It’s not quite Denver (DEN), and it’s not quite Chicago (DEN). It serves the Upper Midwest, Great Plains, and the northern parts of the Mountain West. It is also a significant gateway to the Prairie regions of Canada. It is almost akin to an airport like Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) because it is on the precipice of multiple regions, but it is much smaller because it serves less populated regions of the country, and the Twin Cities themselves are less populated. The Twin It is an overall good recipe for success, and it has been; however, not everything that looks good on paper bears out in real time.
Despite MSP being well-positioned for flights to Asia, it does not appear to serve as a gateway to Asia particularly well.
MSP is right along the great circle routing for flights to East Asia. It is further west than Atlanta (ATL) or Detroit (DTW) and could capture more connections in a way that is more efficient. It doesn’t. Why?
Below are the load factors on DL’s flights to Asia from ATL, DTW, and MSP. Seattle (SEA) and Los Angeles (LAX) serve different traffic flows so they will not be compared here.
Given MSP’s location and its ample opportunities for connections, it should, at least in theory, have higher loads. There are a few reasons I feel it doesn’t.
1) Less O&D relative to ATL and DTW.
Below is a graph showing the O&D between ATL, DTW, and MSP to the cities DL serves from them.
There is simply less demand from MSP than from the other central hubs where DL has Asia service. While the Twin Cities are home to a large diaspora of people from Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam in the form of the nation’s largest Hmong population, they do not have the propensity to travel that other groups do.
2) While MSP offers many unique connections, the cities that use it for connections to Tokyo and Seoul could just as easily connect in Atlanta or Detroit
Delta serves 18 destinations from MSP in the Midwest and the Northeastern Rockies that they do not serve from ATL or DTW. However, these don’t add up to much demand to/from Asia. When we look at who uses DL’s two daily flights between MSP and Asia, we see that it is a similar group of cities that use the flights from DTW and ATL.
Looking at DL’s MSP-Tokyo service, there are no cities that couldn’t just as easily be handled over other hubs.
Delta’s MSP-Seoul service is a little different. Because Delta and Korean Air have a joint venture agreement, connections are made on both ends of the flight more frequently. Because MSP-based travelers use this flight to get to points beyond ICN, the dynamic is different than DL’s MSP-HND service. On average, roughly 80 passengers on this flight will originate in MSP or be bound for MSP each way.
I am not making the argument that either of these flights should be cancelled or even reduced. MSP-ICN serves a very good purpose, given the joint venture agreement between Delta and Korean Air. However, I do not know that DL would fly MSP-HND if HND slots could be moved around freely. They may still. We don’t know the revenue the flight brings in, and it could be superb, but the passenger numbers do not look as good from MSP as they do from DTW and ATL. MSP produces less O&D, and, other than Fargo, all the cities listed in both the above graphs could be handled elsewhere.
In contrast to Asia, MSP-Europe works well
Like Asia, MSP has a nice location for funneling traffic to Europe. But unlike Asia, DL seems to do a better job funneling traffic over MSP to Europe.
The O&D picture is as similar as it was to Asia. On average, between May 2024 and May 2025, Atlanta produced 2,387 PDEW (passengers daily each way) to Europe. Detroit had 1,401, and Minneapolis had 1,186. But the data below shows that the Minneapolis-Europe market is actually more concentrated in fewer cities than Detroit-Europe, which is more scattered.
The Load Factors between Minneapolis and Europe are also similar to Detroit and Atlanta
Unlike Asia, the load factors between MSP and Europe are just as good as its counterparts in ATL and DTW. This will be revisited at a later time as DL has expanded MSP for the summer of 2025, and we will not have data on it for several months.
Where does DL's hub at MSP go from here?
We can probably rule out expansion to places like South America and Australasia, as well as further expansion into Asia.
My initial reaction would be that Delta could expand service from MSP to more points in the Western United States; however, their recent cancellations from MSP to Fairbanks, Great Falls, Buffalo, and Albuquerque make me feel that MSP may not be the recipient of additional domestic service from the Western US. Routes like Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, Eugene, and Jackson Hole (which is seasonal) would have seemed like good fits, but DL seems to be happy with the combo of service to Atlanta and Salt Lake City. Based on that, I wouldn’t look for much.
Hawaii may present new opportunities as MSP-Kahului is a sizable market and it would be easy to attract people seeking to get out of the Midwest for warmer climates. A route like this does require a wide-body aircraft, but a seasonal service a couple of times a week seems plausible.
MSP-Europe has been expanded in recent years, and so far, things look promising. We will know the passenger numbers in a few months. If loads remain high on all MSP-Europe flights, we could look for more summer seasonal flights between the two. It will be something to look at over the next few months.
While I do not expect DL to fly between MSP and East Africa, MSP is a large source of O&D to the region. Ethiopian Airlines flight from Chicago to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia depends on connections from MSP to make the flight work. I fully expect MSP to be connected to the region at some point in time. I would even argue that it could be a great opportunity for Delta to fly MSP-Nairobi (NBO), but it is hard to see them flying that route over ATL-NBO. Kenya Airways, on the other hand, might find fertile ground in Minnesota!
Delta has a prize with its Twin Cities hub. It serves a unique part of the country, and the market itself is a valuable O&D market. Time will tell how the hub develops, but the future should be very bright for Delta in the Twin Cities.
Jeremy Crowther
October 2, 2025Very interesting! Thanks for this analysis!