Minnesota’s Most Popular Airlines Revealed For 2026
The numbers are in, and we now know just which airlines are the most popular and are used by Minnesotans the most when we fly out of the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Minnesota’s skies are busier than ever, but a few airlines are carrying the bulk of the load. From hometown favorites to surprise challengers, here’s who tops the list of the state’s busiest carriers in 2026.
It's not a surprise that the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) is the largest airport in the North Star State. So it's no surprise that a LOT of Minnesotans (and Iowans and Wisconsinites and others) head through the TSA checkpoints at MSP each year when traveling across the country and overseas.
How Many People Fly Through MSP Each Year?
It helps that you can fly to A LOT of different places directly from MSP without having to catch a connecting flight elsewhere. In fact, in its 2025 annual report, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), which owns MSP, says airlines there served 166 nonstop destinations from the North Star State in 2025, an increase from 163 in 2024.
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Overall, MSP supported 342,683 aircraft operations in 2025 (takeoffs and landings from aircraft types, including commercial airline, cargo, military, and general aviation). That compares to 342,254 operations in 2024, the MAC report said.
And, when you add all those flights up, just under 35 million passengers went through the turnstiles at MSP last year. Specifically, MSP totaled 34,990,156 revenue passengers in 2025, 3 percent below 2024’s total of 36,154,831,
Which Airlines Fly Out of MSP in 2026?
Did you know that 15 different airlines fly in and out of MSP? Here's the current line-up, as of May 2026:
+ Aer Lingus
+ Air Canada
+ Air France
+ Alaska Airlines
+ American Airlines
+ Delta Air Lines
+ Denver Air
+ Discover Airlines
+ Frontier Airlines
+ Icelandair
+ KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
+ Southwest Airlines
+ Sun Country Airlines
+ United Airlines
+ WestJet
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But just which of those airlines carried the most passengers, and were the busiest in Minnesota? The 2025 MAC annual report has the information:
The Most Popular Airlines in Minnesota Ranked
The Busiest Airlines in Minnesota (based on 2025 market share)
- Delta Air Lines - 71.39%
- Sun Country Airlines - 11.17 %
- American Airlines - 4.50%
- Southwest Airlines - 4.36%
- United Airlines - 4.24%
- Alaska Airlines - 0.98%
- Frontier Airlines - 0.94%
- Spirit Airlines - 0.52%
- WestJet - 0.50%
- Air Canada - 0.33%
With all these increases, it's not a surprise MSP was once again named the best airport in North America in 2025, meaning MSP has now earned the highest ranking in customer satisfaction for mega airports in three out of the past four years.
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Gallery Credit: Lauren Wells
