Flight number record
DL 1487
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to New York
- Route
- DTW → LGA
- Departs
- 07:00
- Flights
- 356
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1487, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1487 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 13 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 45 minutes. That rests on 356 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1487's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 131 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 345 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.81%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
2.0%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 356 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 1487 flies
DL 1487 is scheduled to leave Detroit (DTW) at 07:00 local time and reach New York (LGA) at 08:49. That slot held for 350 of the 356 scheduled departures in the data, so the figures below describe one steady operation rather than a number that moved around the clock.
- Departs 07:00350 flights98.3%
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 07:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1487 runs level with that at 90.7%. 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 1487 next to DTW to LGA
Every carrier on DTW to LGA combined arrived on time 75.4% of the time across 4,011 flights, so DL 1487 is 15 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,979 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 77.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1487thin sample | 356 | 90.7% | 44 min | 2.81% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on DTW–LGA | 1,979 | 77.3% | 69 min | 3.49% | B− |
| All carriers on DTW–LGA | 4,011 | 75.4% | 75 min | 5.11% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 1487 quarter by quarter
DL 1487 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 97.6% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 85.9%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 89 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 202584 flights97.6%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights87.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights85.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights92.2%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1487 did best on Thursday at 96.1% on time and worst on Sunday at 83.0%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 1487 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 60% of the 1,421 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.
- 60%Carrier
- 35%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 2%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, 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 859 of the 1,421 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,421 delay minutes reported on DL 1487.
Cancellations run at 2.81%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.0% 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 502 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 356 flights under DL 1487 in the data flew DTW to LGA. 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. 356 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 1487
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 1487: 2.81% of its 356 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 45 minutes, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to LGA, every carrier and departure
- LGA to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2589 on the same route86.0%
- Delta Air Lines 2602 on the same route75.4%
- Delta Air Lines 2603 on the same route73.5%
- Republic Airways 4477 on the same route84.9%
- Delta Air Lines 2604 on the same route59.3%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) 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
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.