Airline · DL · 2020–2025 BTS data
Delta Air Lines
According to PlainFlights' airline traffic ranking (BTS On-Time Performance total flights), Delta Air Lines ranks #2 of 18 tracked US carriers by total flights (most flights = #1).
Data updated 2026-06-13
- 84.6%
- On-time
- +5.6 pts
- vs US avg
- 76 min
- Delay when late
- 1.47%
- Cancelled
- #2 of 18
- Corpus placement
According to PlainFlights' airline traffic ranking (BTS On-Time Performance total flights), Delta Air Lines ranks #2 of 18 tracked US carriers by total flights (most flights = #1). How we place airlines.
BTS on-time dispatch plate
Carrier DL · Delta Air Lines
ONTIME-SOLID · ABOVE-AVG · BOOK-MEGA · CARRIER-LED · CX-WARM · SPREAD-WIDE
- ONTIME-SOLID 84.6% on-time
- ABOVE-AVG +5.6 pts vs US
- BOOK-MEGA 5.2M flights
- CARRIER-LED Carrier-led delays
- CX-WARM 1.47% cancel
- SPREAD-WIDE 18-pt season gap
Nearest on-time peer: Republic Airways (+ 0.3 pts)
Instrument codes from this carrier’s BTS on-time band, national gap, flight-book size, leading delay cause, cancel posture, and seasonal spread, not a booking recommendation.
On-time neighbourhood
Poles + nearest peers, not a full 18-carrier reprint
- EV
EV 89.8%
90
- QX
QX 85.7%
86
- YX
YX 84.9%
85
- DL
DL 84.6%
85
- OO
OO 83.6%
84
- HA
HA 83.1%
83
- F9
F9 73.7%
74
What this shows How DL sits among BTS on-time poles and nearest peers.
Delta Air Lines - monthly on-time rate
Last 24 months reported; ranged 72%–90%
Delta Air Lines - BTS Delay Tier Breakdown
How Delta Air Lines flights distribute across federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics arrival-delay tiers. The on-time band uses the BTS 15-minute threshold; longer-delay tiers reflect arrival-time bins reported in the underlying database.
Delay Cause Breakdown
Top delay cause: Carrier. Total delay minutes: 56,798,474.
Seasonal on-time calendar
Multi-year average by calendar month for DL (BTS 2020–2025), not a single recent year.
-
Best month
October
89.1% on-time · ~76,174 flights/mo
-
Mid pack
January
84.4% on-time · ~70,522 flights/mo
-
Worst month
July
78.7% on-time · ~77,025 flights/mo
Spread 10.4 pts between October and July. The monthly chart above shows the recent path; this desk ranks the long-run calendar.
DL delay-share reading
Across 5,242,763 BTS-reported flights (2020–2025), Delta Air Lines posts 84.6% on-time, 5.6 points above the 79% national flight-weighted average, with 807,861 delayed arrivals and 76,994 cancellations (1.47% of the book). When a flight runs late, the average delay is 76.0 minutes.
Delay minutes concentrate in Carrier (28.1% late-aircraft, 47.9% carrier, 18.9% NAS, 5.0% weather, 0.1% security across 56,798,474 total delay minutes). That mix is this carrier’s fingerprint, not a fleet-wide template sentence.
On the multi-year calendar, DL is strongest in October (89.1% on-time on about 76,174 flights per month) and weakest in July (78.7%). The 10.4-point seasonal swing is why the dispatch plate stamps a season code for this airline alone.
Nearest on-time peer
Closest BTS on-time neighbour for DL, not a universal board reprint.
Republic Airways
+0.3 pts on-time vs DL
Field definitions: on-time performance explained.
Disclaimer: This information is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Data is sourced from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). Consult a qualified professional before making decisions based on this data.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Every figure on PlainFlights is rendered directly from BTS On-Time Performance data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates this airline's on-time performance and delay-cause breakdown, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.