Flight number record
DL 1033
Delta Air Lines · Raleigh to Boston
- Route
- RDU → BOS
- Departs
- 13:10
- Flights
- 277
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1033, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1033 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 277 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 1033 runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 42 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 274 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.08%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
14.2%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 277 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Schedule
When DL 1033 flies
DL 1033 flies RDU to BOS without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 13:10, used on 62 of 277 flights, with 12:59 (53 flights) and 13:20 (44 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 13:1062 flights22.4%
- Departs 12:5953 flights19.1%
- Departs 13:2044 flights15.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 13:10 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and DL 1033 runs 5 points worse at 73.4%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
Against the route
DL 1033 next to RDU to BOS
Every carrier on RDU to BOS combined arrived on time 78.8% of the time across 2,815 flights, so DL 1033 is 5 points behind it. Delta flew 1,436 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 80.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1033thin sample | 277 | 73.4% | 87 min | 1.08% | C |
| All Delta Air Lines on RDU–BOS | 1,436 | 80.4% | 87 min | 2.51% | B |
| All carriers on RDU–BOS | 2,815 | 78.8% | 82 min | 2.59% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 1033 quarter by quarter
DL 1033 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 65.2%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 69 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 202580 flights69.6%
- Oct–Dec 202569 flights65.2%
- Jan–Mar 202661 flights83.3%
- Apr–Jun 202667 flights77.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1033 ranged from 68.8% on Thursday to 78.3% on Friday. With about 40 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Delay causes
Why DL 1033 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 45% of the 6,351 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 45%National Airspace System
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%Carrier
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 6,351 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 43 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 6,351 delay minutes reported on DL 1033.
Cancellations sit at 1.08% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 14.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 612 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The same number turns up on three other city pairs in the data, including HOU to ATL (16), ATL to HOU (16) and ATL to MSP (1), but none flew often enough under DL 1033 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to RDU to BOS only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 277 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 1033
For a booking, DL 1033 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 14.2% of its completed flights arrived an hour or more late, which a short layover will not absorb. If the onward flight is on a separate ticket, the risk sits with you.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to BOS, every carrier and departure
- BOS to RDU, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1054 on the same route93.1%
- JetBlue Airways 484 on the same route85.3%
- Delta Air Lines 1022 on the same route88.9%
- Delta Air Lines 2393 on the same route72.2%
- JetBlue Airways 2184 on the same route63.4%
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.