Flight number record

DL 1160

Delta Air Lines · Madison to Atlanta

Route: MSN → ATL
Departs: 05:40
Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1160, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 1160 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 15 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 15 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 151 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

92.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 357 completed flights

Avg delay

187 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.37%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

5.3%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Schedule

When DL 1160 flies

DL 1160 flies MSN to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 05:40, used on 111 of 365 flights, with 05:30 (94 flights) and 05:38 (80 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 05:40111 flights30.4%
Departs 05:3094 flights25.8%
Departs 05:3880 flights21.9%

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 05:40 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 3 points better at 92.7%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

DL 1160 next to MSN to ATL

Every carrier on MSN to ATL combined arrived on time 90.3% of the time across 1,025 flights, so DL 1160 is 2 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 11 points.

DL 1160 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 1160	365	92.7%	187 min	1.37%	A
All Delta Air Lines on MSN–ATL	1,025	90.3%	128 min	1.85%	A
All carriers on MSN–ATL	1,025	90.3%	128 min	1.85%	A
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 1160 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter DL 1160 held fairly steady: 91.3% in Jul–Sep 2025, 91.1% in Oct–Dec 2025, 94.3% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 94.3% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 3 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202592 flights91.3%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.1%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights94.3%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights94.3%

Scale runs 85% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 1160 ranged from 89.8% on Sunday to 96.1% on Thursday. 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.

Delay causes

Why DL 1160 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 83% of the 4,863 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.

Carrier
83%
Late-arriving aircraft
11%
Extreme weather
4%
National Airspace System
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 83%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,024 of the 4,863 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,863 delay minutes reported on DL 1160.

Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

5.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 3.1 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.

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. 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 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, DL 1160 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 92.7% on time and 1.37% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures