Flight number record
DL 1201
Delta Air Lines · Orlando to Detroit
- Route
- MCO → DTW
- Departs
- 06:00
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1201, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1201 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 77.3%. 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 1201's record is 15 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 150 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
92.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights
Avg delay
122 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.0%
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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Schedule
When DL 1201 flies
DL 1201 flies MCO to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:00, used on 208 of 365 flights, with 06:05 (90 flights) next.
- Departs 06:00208 flights57.0%
- Departs 06:0590 flights24.7%
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 06:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1201 runs 3 points better at 92.3%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Against the route
DL 1201 next to MCO to DTW
Every carrier on MCO to DTW combined arrived on time 72.9% of the time across 3,594 flights, so DL 1201 is 19 points ahead of it. Delta flew 2,211 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.5% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 11 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1201 | 365 | 92.3% | 122 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on MCO–DTW | 2,211 | 74.5% | 80 min | 0.86% | C+ |
| All carriers on MCO–DTW | 3,594 | 72.9% | 73 min | 1.14% | C |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1201 quarter by quarter
DL 1201 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 100.0% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 88.9%, a swing of 11 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 flights100.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights95.7%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights90.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights88.9%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights91.7%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1201 ranged from 86.5% on Thursday to 96.1% on Friday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1201 runs when it is late
DL 1201 often beats the schedule: 133 of 362 completed flights, 37%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 28 late arrivals split 11 under half an hour, 6 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 11 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early133 flights36.7%
- Within 15 min201 flights55.5%
- 15–29 min late11 flights3.0%
- 30–59 min late6 flights1.7%
- 1–2 hours late3 flights0.8%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 362 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 22 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 2 made it up before arrival. 8 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1201
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 July 2026, 15 hours 57 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 July 2026 | 15 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 June 2026 | 12 hours 34 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 July 2026 | 3 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 October 2025 | 3 hours 11 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 March 2026 | 3 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1201 runs late
Carrier accounts for 69% of the 3,425 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 69%Carrier
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 69%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,365 of the 3,425 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,425 delay minutes reported on DL 1201.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.0% 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 957 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 1201 in the data flew MCO to DTW. 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 1201
For a booking, DL 1201 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 92.3% on time and 0.82% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to DTW, every carrier and departure
- DTW to MCO, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2845 on the same route90.6%
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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.