Flight number record
DL 1163
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Boston
- Route
- DTW → BOS
- Departs
- 07:00
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1163, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1163 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 14 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 50 minutes. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1163's record is 14 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 137 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
91.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 357 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.19%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 1163 flies
DL 1163 flies DTW to BOS without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 163 of 365 flights, with 07:05 (112 flights) next.
- Departs 07:00163 flights44.7%
- Departs 07:05112 flights30.7%
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 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 1163 runs level with that at 91.0%. 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 1163 next to DTW to BOS
Every carrier on DTW to BOS combined arrived on time 73.6% of the time across 2,572 flights, so DL 1163 is 17 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,716 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.6% 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 1163 | 365 | 91.0% | 52 min | 2.19% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on DTW–BOS | 1,716 | 74.6% | 65 min | 1.98% | C |
| All carriers on DTW–BOS | 2,572 | 73.6% | 71 min | 2.72% | C |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1163 quarter by quarter
DL 1163 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 81.2%, a swing of 16 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 202592 flights92.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights81.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights96.7%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights91.7%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1163 ranged from 88.2% on Monday to 95.9% on Tuesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 8 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1163 runs when it is late
DL 1163 often beats the schedule: 177 of 357 completed flights, 50%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 32 late arrivals split 12 under half an hour, 11 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 9 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early177 flights49.6%
- Within 15 min148 flights41.5%
- 15–29 min late12 flights3.4%
- 30–59 min late11 flights3.1%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.7%
- 2+ hours late3 flights0.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 357 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
8 of 29 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. 11 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1163
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 December 2025, 2 hours 50 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 December 2025 | 2 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 January 2026 | 2 hours 26 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 13 March 2026 | 2 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 November 2025 | 1 hour 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 August 2026 | 1 hour 44 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1163 runs late
Carrier accounts for 68% of the 1,650 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 68%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 2%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 68%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,127 of the 1,650 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,650 delay minutes reported on DL 1163.
Cancellations sit at 2.19% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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 632 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 1163 in the data flew DTW to BOS. 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 1163
For a booking, read DL 1163 as 91.0% on time with 2.19% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to BOS, every carrier and departure
- BOS to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2648 on the same route82.7%
- Delta Air Lines 1187 on the same route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines 1171 on the same route68.2%
- Delta Air Lines 1707 on the same route55.5%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) 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.