Flight number record
DL 1242
Delta Air Lines · Austin to Minneapolis
- Route
- AUS → MSP
- Departs
- 06:15
- Flights
- 255
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1242, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1242 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 about 2.1 hours. That rests on 255 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1242'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 247 completed flights
Avg delay
128 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.35%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 255 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 1242 flies
DL 1242 flies AUS to MSP without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:15, used on 153 of 255 flights, with 06:10 (57 flights) and 06:05 (29 flights) next.
- Departs 06:15153 flights60.0%
- Departs 06:1057 flights22.4%
- Departs 06:0529 flights11.4%
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 06:15 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1242 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.
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Against the route
DL 1242 next to AUS to MSP
Every carrier on AUS to MSP combined arrived on time 78.0% of the time across 1,684 flights, so DL 1242 is 14 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,022 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.6% 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 1242thin sample | 255 | 92.3% | 128 min | 2.35% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on AUS–MSP | 1,022 | 79.6% | 89 min | 1.27% | B |
| All carriers on AUS–MSP | 1,684 | 78.0% | 78 min | 0.83% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1242 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 1242 held fairly steady: 87.2% in Jan–Mar 2026, 94.3% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 95.2% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Oct–Dec 202512 flights—
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights87.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights94.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights95.2%
Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1242 did best on Sunday at 100.0% on time and worst on Saturday at 80.6%. Each day rests on about 36 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1242 runs when it is late
DL 1242 often beats the schedule: 127 of 247 completed flights, 51%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 19 late arrivals split 7 under half an hour, 3 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 9 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early127 flights51.4%
- Within 15 min101 flights40.9%
- 15–29 min late7 flights2.8%
- 30–59 min late3 flights1.2%
- 1–2 hours late3 flights1.2%
- 2+ hours late6 flights2.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 247 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Only 17 of 247 completed flights left 15 minutes late or more, too few to say how often the time is made up.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1242
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 February 2026, 8 hours 50 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 February 2026 | 8 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 May 2026 | 7 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 May 2026 | 4 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 July 2026 | 4 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 June 2026 | 2 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1242 runs late
Carrier accounts for 91% of the 2,422 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 91%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 91%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,215 of the 2,422 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,422 delay minutes reported on DL 1242.
Cancellations sit at 2.35% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.78%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% 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 1,042 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 three other city pairs in the data, including DTW to MCO (63), TVC to LGA (3) and LGA to TVC (3), but none flew often enough under DL 1242 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to AUS to MSP only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 255 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 1242
For a booking, read DL 1242 as 92.3% on time with 2.35% cancelled over 255 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to MSP, every carrier and departure
- MSP to AUS, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1042 on the same route69.8%
- Delta Air Lines 2062 on the same route72.6%
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) 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
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
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.