Flight number record
DL 1003
Delta Air Lines · Washington to Orlando
- Route
- DCA → MCO
- Departs
- 06:59
- Flights
- 350
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1003, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1003 lands a B−, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 350 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1003's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 64 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 332 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.86%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 350 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Schedule
When DL 1003 flies
DL 1003 flies DCA to MCO without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:59, used on 167 of 350 flights, with 07:00 (62 flights) next.
- Departs 06:59167 flights47.7%
- Departs 07:0062 flights17.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 06:59 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1003 runs 6 points worse at 83.7%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
DL 1003 next to DCA to MCO
Every carrier on DCA to MCO combined arrived on time 75.2% of the time across 4,593 flights, so DL 1003 is 9 points ahead of it. Delta flew 710 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 77.8% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1003thin sample | 350 | 83.7% | 78 min | 4.86% | B− |
| All Delta Air Lines on DCA–MCO | 710 | 77.8% | 86 min | 3.66% | B− |
| All carriers on DCA–MCO | 4,593 | 75.2% | 83 min | 2.57% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1003 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 1003 held fairly steady: 81.5% in Oct–Dec 2025, 88.1% in Jan–Mar 2026, 87.2% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 81.5% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202527 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202584 flights81.5%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights88.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.2%
- Jul–Sep 202658 flights81.5%
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1003 did best on Monday at 87.8% on time and worst on Friday at 71.4%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1003 runs when it is late
DL 1003 often beats the schedule: 106 of 332 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 54 late arrivals split 18 under half an hour, 16 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early106 flights31.9%
- Within 15 min172 flights51.8%
- 15–29 min late18 flights5.4%
- 30–59 min late16 flights4.8%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.8%
- 2+ hours late14 flights4.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 332 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
7 of 47 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. 14 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1003
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 December 2025, 4 hours 44 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. Three of the five worst days fell in December 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 December 2025 | 4 hours 44 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 31 December 2025 | 4 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 March 2026 | 4 hours 13 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 December 2025 | 3 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 February 2026 | 3 hours 20 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 1003 runs late
Carrier accounts for 65% of the 4,183 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 65%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 7%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 65%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,735 of the 4,183 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,183 delay minutes reported on DL 1003.
Cancellations run at 4.86%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
6.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 759 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
DL 1003 is not only a DCA to MCO flight. It also flew MCO to DCA (250 flights, 81.2% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 350 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MCO to DCAthin sample | 250 | 81.2% | 65 min | 3.20% | B− |
What to do with this
Booking DL 1003
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 1003: 4.86% of its 350 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs a little over an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to MCO, every carrier and departure
- MCO to DCA, the return direction
- JetBlue Airways 2423 on the same route79.3%
- JetBlue Airways 1923 on the same route70.6%
- JetBlue Airways 2523 on the same route59.9%
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record
- Every Delta Air Lines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
A flight number here means Delta Air Lines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.