Flight number record
DL 1279
Delta Air Lines · Raleigh to Tampa
- Route
- RDU → TPA
- Departs
- 06:30
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1279, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1279 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 an hour. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1279's record is 15 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 154 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
92.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.65%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 364 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 1279 flies
DL 1279 flies RDU to TPA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:30, used on 90 of 364 flights, with 06:15 (72 flights) and 06:50 (59 flights) next.
- Departs 06:3090 flights24.7%
- Departs 06:1572 flights19.8%
- Departs 06:5059 flights16.2%
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 06:30 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1279 runs 3 points better at 92.7%. 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 1279 next to RDU to TPA
Every carrier on RDU to TPA combined arrived on time 82.2% of the time across 1,294 flights, so DL 1279 is 11 points ahead of it. Delta flew 651 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 84.7% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 12 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1279thin sample | 364 | 92.7% | 64 min | 1.65% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on RDU–TPA | 651 | 84.7% | 72 min | 1.84% | B |
| All carriers on RDU–TPA | 1,294 | 82.2% | 66 min | 2.09% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1279 quarter by quarter
DL 1279 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 100.0% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 87.5%, a swing of 13 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 202591 flights92.0%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights87.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights93.4%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights96.7%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1279 ranged from 86.5% on Saturday to 98.0% on Tuesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 12 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1279 runs when it is late
DL 1279 often beats the schedule: 171 of 358 completed flights, 48%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 26 late arrivals split 12 under half an hour, 7 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 7 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early171 flights47.8%
- Within 15 min161 flights45.0%
- 15–29 min late12 flights3.4%
- 30–59 min late7 flights2.0%
- 1–2 hours late3 flights0.8%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 358 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 21 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 2 made it up before arrival. Only 7 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1279
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 February 2026, 5 hours 43 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 16 February 2026 | 5 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 April 2026 | 3 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 January 2026 | 2 hours 44 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 January 2026 | 2 hours 29 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 May 2026 | 1 hour 48 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1279 runs late
Carrier accounts for 79% of the 1,669 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 79%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 9%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 79%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,321 of the 1,669 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,669 delay minutes reported on DL 1279.
Cancellations sit at 1.65% 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 2.0% 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 587 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 1279 is not only a RDU to TPA flight. It also flew TPA to RDU (290 flights, 92.0% 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. 364 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TPA to RDUthin sample | 290 | 92.0% | 94 min | 1.03% | A |
What to do with this
Booking DL 1279
For a booking, read DL 1279 as 92.7% on time with 1.65% cancelled over 364 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to TPA, every carrier and departure
- TPA to RDU, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1275 on the same route74.8%
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) 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.