Flight number record
DL 1028
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Atlanta
- Route
- MSP → ATL
- Departs
- 16:33
- Flights
- 358
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1028, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1028 lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 358 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
79.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 356 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
7.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 358 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 1028 flies
DL 1028 flies MSP to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:33, used on 57 of 358 flights, with 16:50 (38 flights) and 16:41 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 16:3357 flights15.9%
- Departs 16:5038 flights10.6%
- Departs 16:4136 flights10.1%
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 16:33 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 1028 runs 7 points better at 79.2%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
DL 1028 next to MSP to ATL
Every carrier on MSP to ATL combined arrived on time 81.7% of the time across 3,489 flights, so DL 1028 is 3 points behind it. Delta flew 3,207 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1028thin sample | 358 | 79.2% | 78 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–ATL | 3,207 | 83.6% | 67 min | 0.47% | B+ |
| All carriers on MSP–ATL | 3,489 | 81.7% | 67 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1028 quarter by quarter
DL 1028 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 72.2%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 72 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights76.9%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights88.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights72.2%
- Jul–Sep 202656 flights73.2%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 1028 did best on Tuesday at 88.5% on time and worst on Sunday at 72.5%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1028 runs when it is late
DL 1028 often beats the schedule: 159 of 356 completed flights, 45%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 74 late arrivals split 20 under half an hour, 29 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 25 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early159 flights44.7%
- Within 15 min123 flights34.6%
- 15–29 min late20 flights5.6%
- 30–59 min late29 flights8.1%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights3.9%
- 2+ hours late11 flights3.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 356 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 92 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 32 still arrived on time. 14 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1028
The latest arrival of the period was on 22 January 2026, 17 hours 56 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 22 January 2026 | 17 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 4 hours 57 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 28 April 2026 | 4 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 4 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 May 2026 | 3 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1028 runs late
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 5,795 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,799 of the 5,795 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,795 delay minutes reported on DL 1028.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
7.0% 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 907 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.
Every one of the 358 flights under DL 1028 in the data flew MSP to ATL. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 358 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.
What to do with this
Booking DL 1028
For a booking, read DL 1028 as 79.2% on time with 0.00% cancelled over 358 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to MSP, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1048 on the same route78.2%
- Delta Air Lines 1052 on the same route90.6%
- Delta Air Lines 1062 on the same route92.0%
- Delta Air Lines 1046 on the same route84.3%
- Delta Air Lines 1039 on the same route90.6%
- Delta Air Lines 1026 on the same route77.1%
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.