Flight number record
DL 1280
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Minneapolis
- Route
- ATL → MSP
- Departs
- 19:59
- Flights
- 315
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 315 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 1280 runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 85 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 311 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.63%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
10.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 315 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 1280 flies
DL 1280 flies ATL to MSP without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 19:59, used on 57 of 315 flights, with 19:08 (44 flights) and 19:24 (40 flights) next.
- Departs 19:5957 flights18.1%
- Departs 19:0844 flights14.0%
- Departs 19:2440 flights12.7%
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 19:59 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 1280 runs level with that at 68.8%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
DL 1280 next to ATL to MSP
Every carrier on ATL to MSP combined arrived on time 79.9% of the time across 3,509 flights, so DL 1280 is 11 points behind it. Delta flew 3,227 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 12 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1280thin sample | 315 | 68.8% | 64 min | 0.63% | C+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–MSP | 3,227 | 81.1% | 55 min | 0.40% | B+ |
| All carriers on ATL–MSP | 3,509 | 79.9% | 56 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | 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 2026 at 53.1%, a swing of 24 points on roughly 79 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 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights69.7%
- Jan–Mar 202677 flights77.6%
- Apr–Jun 202670 flights66.2%
- Jul–Sep 202649 flights53.1%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1280 did best on Wednesday at 76.2% on time and worst on Thursday at 58.0%. Each day rests on about 45 flights, so a gap of 18 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1280 runs when it is late
The 97 late arrivals split 38 under half an hour, 28 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 31 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early52 flights16.7%
- Within 15 min162 flights52.1%
- 15–29 min late38 flights12.2%
- 30–59 min late28 flights9.0%
- 1–2 hours late19 flights6.1%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 311 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
13 of 94 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. In the other direction, 16 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at MSP.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1280
The latest arrival of the period was on 22 February 2026, 13 hours 5 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 22 February 2026 | 13 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 5 hours 13 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 16 August 2026 | 3 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 August 2026 | 3 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 2 hours 59 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 1280 runs late
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 6,170 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,136 of the 6,170 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,170 delay minutes reported on DL 1280.
Cancellations are rare at 0.63%, 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
10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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.
Every one of the 315 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. 315 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: 11 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 route77.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2668 on the same route92.0%
- Delta Air Lines 2901 on the same route85.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2654 on the same route68.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2825 on the same route84.1%
- Delta Air Lines 2981 on the same route72.2%
- 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
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.