Flight number record
DL 1518
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Raleigh
- Route
- ATL → RDU
- Departs
- 19:20
- Flights
- 339
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1518, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1518 lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 339 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
76.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 334 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.18%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 339 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 1518 flies
DL 1518 flies ATL to RDU without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 19:20, used on 43 of 339 flights, with 19:48 (35 flights) and 19:10 (35 flights) next.
- Departs 19:2043 flights12.7%
- Departs 19:4835 flights10.3%
- Departs 19:1035 flights10.3%
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 19:20 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 1518 runs 8 points better at 76.0%. 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 1518 next to ATL to RDU
Every carrier on ATL to RDU combined arrived on time 80.0% of the time across 4,642 flights, so DL 1518 is 4 points behind it. Delta flew 3,811 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 82.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1518thin sample | 339 | 76.0% | 69 min | 1.18% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–RDU | 3,811 | 82.9% | 58 min | 1.34% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–RDU | 4,642 | 80.0% | 62 min | 1.53% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1518 quarter by quarter
DL 1518 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 65.0%, a swing of 25 points on roughly 68 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 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202566 flights84.6%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights77.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights71.4%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights65.0%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 1518 did best on Wednesday at 85.1% on time and worst on Friday at 67.3%. Each day rests on about 48 flights, so a gap of 18 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1518 runs when it is late
The 80 late arrivals split 22 under half an hour, 29 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 29 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early54 flights16.2%
- Within 15 min200 flights59.9%
- 15–29 min late22 flights6.6%
- 30–59 min late29 flights8.7%
- 1–2 hours late17 flights5.1%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 334 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 80 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 8 made it up before arrival. 8 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1518
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 July 2026, 4 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across July, June, August and March, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 July 2026 | 4 hours 53 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 June 2026 | 4 hours 44 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 August 2026 | 4 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 March 2026 | 4 hours 20 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 17 March 2026 | 4 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 1518 runs late
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 5,516 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,516 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 5,516 delay minutes reported on DL 1518.
Cancellations sit at 1.18% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
Every one of the 339 flights under DL 1518 in the data flew ATL to RDU. 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. 339 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 1518
For a booking, read DL 1518 as 76.0% on time with 1.18% cancelled over 339 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to RDU, every carrier and departure
- RDU to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2052 on the same route90.5%
- Frontier Airlines 1168 on the same route69.0%
- Frontier Airlines 1670 on the same route50.8%
- Delta Air Lines 2600 on the same route76.9%
- Delta Air Lines 1699 on the same route93.2%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.