Flight number record
DL 1039
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Atlanta
- Route
- MSP → ATL
- Departs
- 07:00
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1039, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1039 earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 13 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1039's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 133 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 361 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.55%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 363 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 1039 flies
DL 1039 flies MSP to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 245 of 363 flights, with 07:15 (39 flights) and 07:05 (37 flights) next.
- Departs 07:00245 flights67.5%
- Departs 07:1539 flights10.7%
- Departs 07:0537 flights10.2%
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 07:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1039 runs level with that at 90.6%. 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 1039 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 1039 is 9 points ahead of 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 beats by 10 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1039thin sample | 363 | 90.6% | 72 min | 0.55% | A+ |
| 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 1039 quarter by quarter
DL 1039 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 86.7%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 73 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 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights86.7%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights93.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights89.0%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights91.9%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1039 ranged from 86.3% on Friday to 96.2% on Tuesday. With about 52 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.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1039 runs when it is late
DL 1039 often beats the schedule: 111 of 361 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 34 late arrivals split 15 under half an hour, 10 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 9 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early111 flights30.7%
- Within 15 min216 flights59.8%
- 15–29 min late15 flights4.2%
- 30–59 min late10 flights2.8%
- 1–2 hours late4 flights1.1%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 361 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 31 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 13 still arrived on time. 16 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1039
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 October 2025, 10 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 October 2025 | 10 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 3 hours 28 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 25 September 2025 | 3 hours 13 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 October 2025 | 2 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 December 2025 | 2 hours 24 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 1039 runs late
Carrier accounts for 61% of the 2,462 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 7%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,503 of the 2,462 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,462 delay minutes reported on DL 1039.
Cancellations are rare at 0.55%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
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 363 flights under DL 1039 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. 363 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 1039
For a booking, DL 1039 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 90.6% on time and 0.55% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single 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 1026 on the same route77.1%
- Delta Air Lines 1028 on the same route79.2%
- 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.