Flight number record
DL 1298
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Detroit
- Route
- ATL → DTW
- Departs
- 09:00
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1298, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1298 earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 40 minutes. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1298's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 70 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights
Avg delay
41 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 1298 flies
DL 1298 flies ATL to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:00, used on 85 of 365 flights, with 09:16 (66 flights) and 09:18 (45 flights) next.
- Departs 09:0085 flights23.3%
- Departs 09:1666 flights18.1%
- Departs 09:1845 flights12.3%
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 09:00 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 1298 runs level with that at 84.3%. 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 1298 next to ATL to DTW
Every carrier on ATL to DTW combined arrived on time 76.4% of the time across 4,821 flights, so DL 1298 is 8 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,774 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 77.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1298 | 365 | 84.3% | 41 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–DTW | 3,774 | 77.9% | 60 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| All carriers on ATL–DTW | 4,821 | 76.4% | 64 min | 0.81% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1298 quarter by quarter
DL 1298 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 72.6%, a swing of 24 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 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights82.6%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights81.6%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights92.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights72.6%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1298 ranged from 78.4% on Sunday to 86.5% on Wednesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 8 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1298 runs when it is late
The 57 late arrivals split 24 under half an hour, 24 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 9 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early38 flights10.5%
- Within 15 min267 flights73.8%
- 15–29 min late24 flights6.6%
- 30–59 min late24 flights6.6%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.7%
- 2+ hours late3 flights0.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 362 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 46 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 5 made it up before arrival. 16 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1298
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 March 2026, 2 hours 44 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 20 March 2026 | 2 hours 44 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 July 2026 | 2 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 August 2026 | 2 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 December 2025 | 1 hour 28 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 29 October 2025 | 1 hour 26 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1298 runs late
Carrier accounts for 66% of the 2,349 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 66%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 5%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 66%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,554 of the 2,349 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,349 delay minutes reported on DL 1298.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.5% 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 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.
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, read DL 1298 as 84.3% on time with 0.82% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to DTW, every carrier and departure
- DTW to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1031 on the same route83.9%
- Delta Air Lines 1240 on the same route82.7%
- Delta Air Lines 1646 on the same route90.6%
- Delta Air Lines 1005 on the same route75.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2940 on the same route72.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2067 on the same route74.6%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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.