Flight number record

DL 1298

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Detroit

Route: ATL → DTW
Departs: 09:00
Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1298, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 1298 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 9 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 40 minutes. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 1298's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 94 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

87.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights

Avg delay

39 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.82%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

1.9%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.

Schedule

When DL 1298 flies

DL 1298 flies ATL to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:00, used on 84 of 365 flights, with 09:17 (73 flights) and 09:16 (66 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 09:0084 flights23.0%
Departs 09:1773 flights20.0%
Departs 09:1666 flights18.1%

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 09:00 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and DL 1298 runs 3 points better at 87.0%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

DL 1298 next to ATL to DTW

Every carrier on ATL to DTW combined arrived on time 78.0% of the time across 4,871 flights, so DL 1298 is 9 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,698 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.5% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 5 points.

DL 1298 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 1298	365	87.0%	39 min	0.82%	A+
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–DTW	3,698	79.5%	57 min	0.51%	B+
All carriers on ATL–DTW	4,871	78.0%	63 min	0.82%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 1298 quarter by quarter

DL 1298 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 92.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 81.6%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 91 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 flights91.3%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights82.6%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights81.6%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights92.3%

Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 1298 ranged from 82.4% on Sunday to 92.3% on Thursday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Delay causes

Why DL 1298 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 61% of the 1,837 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.

Carrier
61%
National Airspace System
31%
Late-arriving aircraft
6%
Extreme weather
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, 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 1,123 of the 1,837 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,837 delay minutes reported on DL 1298.

Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 594 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 365 flights under DL 1298 in the data flew ATL to DTW. 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 1298

For a booking, DL 1298 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 87.0% on time and 0.82% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures