Flight number record
DL 1291
Delta Air Lines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Salt Lake City
- Route
- DFW → SLC
- Departs
- 08:10
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1291, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1291 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 close to two hours. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1291'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 359 completed flights
Avg delay
113 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.64%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 1291 flies
DL 1291 flies DFW to SLC without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:10, used on 131 of 365 flights, with 08:15 (57 flights) and 07:45 (57 flights) next.
- Departs 08:10131 flights35.9%
- Departs 08:1557 flights15.6%
- Departs 07:4557 flights15.6%
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 08:10 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 1291 runs 6 points better at 89.4%. 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 1291 next to DFW to SLC
Every carrier on DFW to SLC combined arrived on time 71.1% of the time across 3,872 flights, so DL 1291 is 18 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,459 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.1% 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 1291 | 365 | 89.4% | 113 min | 1.64% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on DFW–SLC | 1,459 | 83.1% | 87 min | 1.44% | B |
| All carriers on DFW–SLC | 3,872 | 71.1% | 70 min | 2.17% | C |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1291 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 1291 held fairly steady: 90.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 91.2% in Oct–Dec 2025, 89.5% in Jan–Mar 2026, 86.8% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 90.2% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 4 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights89.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights86.8%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights90.2%
Scale runs 80% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 1291 ranged from 84.6% on Friday to 96.1% 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 1291 runs when it is late
DL 1291 often beats the schedule: 142 of 359 completed flights, 40%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 38 late arrivals split 14 under half an hour, 7 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 17 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early142 flights39.6%
- Within 15 min179 flights49.9%
- 15–29 min late14 flights3.9%
- 30–59 min late7 flights1.9%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights2.2%
- 2+ hours late9 flights2.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 359 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
5 of 36 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. Only 7 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1291
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 August 2026, 13 hours 51 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2 August 2026 | 13 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 May 2026 | 8 hours 32 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 March 2026 | 6 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 May 2026 | 5 hours 21 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 June 2026 | 5 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1291 runs late
Carrier accounts for 70% of the 4,304 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%Carrier
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,006 of the 4,304 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,304 delay minutes reported on DL 1291.
Cancellations sit at 1.64% 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 4.7% 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 989 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 365 flights under DL 1291 in the data flew DFW to SLC. 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. 365 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 1291
For a booking, read DL 1291 as 89.4% on time with 1.64% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to SLC, every carrier and departure
- SLC to DFW, the return direction
- American Airlines 1456 on the same route63.4%
- Delta Air Lines 2798 on the same route86.2%
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) 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.