Flight number record
DL 1098
Delta Air Lines · Boston to Minneapolis
- Route
- BOS → MSP
- Departs
- 18:05
- Flights
- 360
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1098, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1098 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 360 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 1098 runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 69 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 355 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.11%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
11.0%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 360 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 1098 flies
DL 1098 flies BOS to MSP without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:05, used on 61 of 360 flights, with 18:15 (48 flights) and 18:25 (47 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 18:0561 flights16.9%
- Departs 18:1548 flights13.3%
- Departs 18:2547 flights13.1%
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 18:05 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 1098 runs 3 points better at 70.7%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
Against the route
DL 1098 next to BOS to MSP
Every carrier on BOS to MSP combined arrived on time 83.1% of the time across 1,851 flights, so DL 1098 is 12 points behind it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 11 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1098thin sample | 360 | 70.7% | 71 min | 1.11% | C |
| All Delta Air Lines on BOS–MSP | 1,851 | 83.1% | 63 min | 1.19% | B |
| All carriers on BOS–MSP | 1,851 | 83.1% | 63 min | 1.19% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 1098 quarter by quarter
DL 1098 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 82.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 63.0%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 90 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 202592 flights63.0%
- Oct–Dec 202588 flights64.8%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights82.4%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights73.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1098 did best on Saturday at 82.4% on time and worst on Sunday at 62.0%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 1098 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 7,354 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.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
60% 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 7,354 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 60 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 7,354 delay minutes reported on DL 1098.
Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
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. 11.0% 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 1,124 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.
Every one of the 360 flights under DL 1098 in the data flew BOS 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. 360 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 1098
For a booking, DL 1098 is one of the weaker ways to fly BOS to MSP: 12 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- BOS to MSP, every carrier and departure
- MSP to BOS, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1127 on the same route74.1%
- Delta Air Lines 1103 on the same route84.4%
- Delta Air Lines 2303 on the same route94.8%
- Boston Logan International (BOS) 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
- 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.