Flight number record
DL 1228
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Atlanta
- Route
- DTW → ATL
- Departs
- 12:21
- Flights
- 273
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1228, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1228 lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 273 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 269 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.47%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.9%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 273 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 1228 flies
DL 1228 flies DTW to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:21, used on 61 of 273 flights, with 14:50 (33 flights) and 14:05 (29 flights) next.
- Departs 12:2161 flights22.3%
- Departs 14:5033 flights12.1%
- Departs 14:0529 flights10.6%
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 12:21 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 1228 runs 2 points better at 80.3%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
DL 1228 next to DTW to ATL
Every carrier on DTW to ATL combined arrived on time 78.9% of the time across 4,832 flights, so DL 1228 is about level with it. Delta flew 3,780 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.2% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1228thin sample | 273 | 80.3% | 67 min | 1.47% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on DTW–ATL | 3,780 | 81.2% | 68 min | 0.48% | B+ |
| All carriers on DTW–ATL | 4,832 | 78.9% | 75 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1228 quarter by quarter
DL 1228 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 77.8%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 68 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 flights77.8%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights78.2%
- Apr–Jun 202662 flights79.0%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1228 did best on Thursday at 92.3% on time and worst on Sunday at 73.0%. Each day rests on about 39 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1228 runs when it is late
The 53 late arrivals split 24 under half an hour, 13 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 16 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early45 flights16.7%
- Within 15 min171 flights63.6%
- 15–29 min late24 flights8.9%
- 30–59 min late13 flights4.8%
- 1–2 hours late9 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 269 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
17 of 59 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 29% of them. 11 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1228
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 November 2025, 7 hours 13 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 November 2025 | 7 hours 13 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 17 March 2026 | 6 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 March 2026 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 January 2026 | 3 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 December 2025 | 3 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 1228 runs late
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 3,544 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 3,544 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 42 to one. The split is drawn from 3,544 delay minutes reported on DL 1228.
Cancellations sit at 1.47% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 594 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.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including LAS to SEA (1), but none flew often enough under DL 1228 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to DTW to ATL only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 273 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 1228
For a booking, read DL 1228 as 80.3% on time with 1.47% cancelled over 273 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2856 on the same route86.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1611 on the same route87.2%
- Delta Air Lines 1467 on the same route76.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2375 on the same route91.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2053 on the same route72.4%
- Delta Air Lines 965 on the same route86.6%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- 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
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.