Flight number record
DL 1280
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Minneapolis
- Route
- ATL → MSP
- Departs
- 19:08
- Flights
- 328
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1280, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1280 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 328 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 1280 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 82 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 324 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.61%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
10.2%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 328 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Schedule
When DL 1280 flies
DL 1280 flies ATL to MSP without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 19:08, used on 44 of 328 flights, with 19:24 (40 flights) and 19:57 (39 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 19:0844 flights13.4%
- Departs 19:2440 flights12.2%
- Departs 19:5739 flights11.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 19:08 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 1280 runs level with that at 69.4%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
Against the route
DL 1280 next to ATL to MSP
Every carrier on ATL to MSP combined arrived on time 81.2% of the time across 3,524 flights, so DL 1280 is 12 points behind it. Delta flew 3,221 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 82.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 12 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1280thin sample | 328 | 69.4% | 67 min | 0.61% | C+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–MSP | 3,221 | 82.1% | 56 min | 0.37% | B+ |
| All carriers on ATL–MSP | 3,524 | 81.2% | 57 min | 0.48% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 1280 quarter by quarter
DL 1280 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 77.6% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 64.8%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 82 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 202592 flights64.8%
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights69.7%
- Jan–Mar 202677 flights77.6%
- Apr–Jun 202670 flights66.2%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1280 did best on Wednesday at 78.7% on time and worst on Thursday at 66.0%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 1280 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 6,631 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 44%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,902 of the 6,631 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,631 delay minutes reported on DL 1280.
Cancellations are rare at 0.61%, below the national 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 907 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
Every one of the 328 flights under DL 1280 in the data flew ATL to MSP. 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. 328 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 1280
For a booking, DL 1280 is one of the weaker ways to fly ATL to MSP: 12 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to MSP, every carrier and departure
- MSP to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1310 on the same route78.5%
- Delta Air Lines 2901 on the same route86.5%
- Delta Air Lines 2668 on the same route91.9%
- Delta Air Lines 2654 on the same route72.9%
- Delta Air Lines 2825 on the same route85.1%
- Delta Air Lines 2981 on the same route73.8%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.