Flight number record
DL 1160
Delta Air Lines · Madison to Atlanta
- Route
- MSN → ATL
- Departs
- 05:30
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1160, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1160 earns an A. Nearly every flight arrives inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 16 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 3.1 hours. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 20 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1160's record is 16 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 157 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
93.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 355 completed flights
Avg delay
187 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.92%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 20 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 1160 flies
DL 1160 flies MSN to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 05:30, used on 94 of 365 flights, with 05:38 (80 flights) and 05:43 (60 flights) next.
- Departs 05:3094 flights25.8%
- Departs 05:3880 flights21.9%
- Departs 05:4360 flights16.4%
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 05:30 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1160 runs 4 points better at 93.0%. 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 1160 next to MSN to ATL
Every carrier on MSN to ATL combined arrived on time 89.6% of the time across 1,030 flights, so DL 1160 is 3 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 12 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1160 | 365 | 93.0% | 187 min | 1.92% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSN–ATL | 1,030 | 89.6% | 102 min | 2.14% | A |
| All carriers on MSN–ATL | 1,030 | 89.6% | 102 min | 2.14% | A |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1160 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 1160 held fairly steady: 90.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 91.1% in Oct–Dec 2025, 94.3% in Jan–Mar 2026, 94.3% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 93.3% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 4 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.1%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights94.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights94.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights93.3%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1160 ranged from 89.6% on Sunday to 96.0% on Monday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 6 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1160 runs when it is late
DL 1160 often beats the schedule: 236 of 355 completed flights, 66%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When DL 1160 is late it tends to be very late: 16 of its 25 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 14 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early236 flights66.5%
- Within 15 min94 flights26.5%
- 15–29 min late5 flights1.4%
- 30–59 min late4 flights1.1%
- 1–2 hours late2 flights0.6%
- 2+ hours late14 flights3.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 355 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
4 of 25 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. Only 4 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1160
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 December 2025, 9 hours 22 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in December 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 December 2025 | 9 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 September 2025 | 8 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 April 2026 | 7 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 December 2025 | 5 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 23 December 2025 | 5 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1160 runs late
Carrier accounts for 81% of the 4,682 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 81%Carrier
- 13%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
- 2%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 81%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,801 of the 4,682 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,682 delay minutes reported on DL 1160.
Cancellations sit at 1.92% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% 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 707 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 1160 in the data flew MSN 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. 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 1160
For a booking, read DL 1160 as 93.0% on time with 1.92% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- MSN to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to MSN, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2681 on the same route90.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2599 on the same route84.6%
- 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.