Flight number record
DL 1246
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Milwaukee
- Route
- ATL → MKE
- Departs
- 12:53
- Flights
- 266
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1246, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1246 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 12 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 40 minutes. That rests on 266 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1246's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 121 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 264 completed flights
Avg delay
41 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.75%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.3%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 266 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 1246 flies
DL 1246 flies ATL to MKE without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:53, used on 38 of 266 flights, with 12:16 (34 flights) and 12:50 (32 flights) next.
- Departs 12:5338 flights14.3%
- Departs 12:1634 flights12.8%
- Departs 12:5032 flights12.0%
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 12:53 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 1246 runs 11 points better at 89.4%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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 1246 next to ATL to MKE
Every carrier on ATL to MKE combined arrived on time 82.8% of the time across 2,264 flights, so DL 1246 is 7 points ahead of it. Delta flew 2,202 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.7% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1246thin sample | 266 | 89.4% | 41 min | 0.75% | A+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–MKE | 2,202 | 83.7% | 53 min | 1.95% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–MKE | 2,264 | 82.8% | 53 min | 1.90% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1246 quarter by quarter
DL 1246 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 85.7%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 67 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 flights85.7%
- Jan–Mar 202628 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202672 flights87.3%
- Jul–Sep 202644 flights93.2%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1246 did best on Wednesday at 97.6% on time and worst on Monday at 82.5%. Each day rests on about 38 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1246 runs when it is late
The 28 late arrivals split 12 under half an hour, 10 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 6 an hour or more. Not one arrived two hours late.
- 15+ min early36 flights13.6%
- Within 15 min200 flights75.8%
- 15–29 min late12 flights4.5%
- 30–59 min late10 flights3.8%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights2.3%
- 2+ hours late0 flights0.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 264 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
7 of 27 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. 8 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1246
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 June 2026, 1 hour 53 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 11 June 2026 | 1 hour 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 July 2026 | 1 hour 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 October 2025 | 1 hour 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 December 2025 | 1 hour 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 June 2026 | 1 hour 12 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1246 runs late
Carrier accounts for 64% of the 1,145 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 64%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 64%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 736 of the 1,145 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,145 delay minutes reported on DL 1246.
Cancellations are rare at 0.75%, 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 2.3% 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 669 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.
DL 1246 is not only a ATL to MKE flight. It also flew MKE to ATL (266 flights, 85.2% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 266 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MKE to ATLthin sample | 266 | 85.2% | 78 min | 0.75% | A+ |
What to do with this
Booking DL 1246
For a booking, DL 1246 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 89.4% on time and 0.75% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to MKE, every carrier and departure
- MKE to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1268 on the same route80.9%
- Delta Air Lines 2999 on the same route91.6%
- Delta Air Lines 1151 on the same route88.6%
- Delta Air Lines 1206 on the same route74.4%
- Delta Air Lines 2152 on the same route83.6%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Milwaukee Mitchell International (MKE) 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.