Flight number record
DL 1050
Delta Air Lines · Houston to Minneapolis
- Route
- IAH → MSP
- Departs
- 06:30
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1050, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1050 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 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1050's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 110 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
115 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.64%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.8%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 1050 flies
DL 1050 flies IAH to MSP without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:30, used on 94 of 365 flights, with 06:40 (53 flights) and 06:27 (50 flights) next.
- Departs 06:3094 flights25.8%
- Departs 06:4053 flights14.5%
- Departs 06:2750 flights13.7%
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 06:30 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1050 runs level with that at 88.3%. 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 1050 next to IAH to MSP
Every carrier on IAH to MSP combined arrived on time 79.2% of the time across 1,939 flights, so DL 1050 is 9 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,278 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 7 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1050 | 365 | 88.3% | 115 min | 1.64% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on IAH–MSP | 1,278 | 79.1% | 100 min | 1.10% | B |
| All carriers on IAH–MSP | 1,939 | 79.2% | 85 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1050 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 1050 held fairly steady: 86.7% in Jul–Sep 2025, 87.8% in Oct–Dec 2025, 86.2% in Jan–Mar 2026, 87.8% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 93.5% 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 202530 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights87.8%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights86.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.8%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights93.5%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1050 did best on Tuesday at 94.1% on time and worst on Sunday at 74.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1050 runs when it is late
DL 1050 often beats the schedule: 132 of 359 completed flights, 37%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 42 late arrivals split 14 under half an hour, 7 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 21 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early132 flights36.8%
- Within 15 min185 flights51.5%
- 15–29 min late14 flights3.9%
- 30–59 min late7 flights1.9%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.7%
- 2+ hours late15 flights4.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 359 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
6 of 38 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1050
The latest arrival of the period was on 15 March 2026, 9 hours 24 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 15 March 2026 | 9 hours 24 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 8 March 2026 | 9 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 December 2025 | 6 hours 53 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 June 2026 | 4 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 August 2026 | 4 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1050 runs late
Carrier accounts for 63% of the 4,828 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 63%Carrier
- 13%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%Extreme weather
- 11%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 13% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the quarterly figures above are the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 4,828 delay minutes reported on DL 1050.
Cancellations sit at 1.64% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.8% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,034 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 365 flights under DL 1050 in the data flew IAH to MSP. 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. 365 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 1050
For a booking, read DL 1050 as 88.3% on time with 1.64% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to MSP, every carrier and departure
- MSP to IAH, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2617 on the same route73.0%
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) 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.