Flight number record
DL 1526
Delta Air Lines · Sacramento to Salt Lake City
- Route
- SMF → SLC
- Departs
- 05:30
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1526, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1526 earns an A+. Nearly every flight arrives inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 19 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.7 hours. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1526's record is 19 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 194 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
96.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights
Avg delay
162 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
1.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 1526 flies
DL 1526 is scheduled to leave Sacramento (SMF) at 05:30 local time and reach Salt Lake City (SLC) at 08:19. That slot held for 298 of the 365 scheduled departures in the data, so the figures below describe one steady operation rather than a number that moved around the clock.
- Departs 05:30298 flights81.6%
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 05:30 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1526 runs 7 points better at 96.7%. 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 1526 next to SMF to SLC
Every carrier on SMF to SLC combined arrived on time 87.0% of the time across 2,165 flights, so DL 1526 is 10 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,503 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 88.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 16 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1526 | 365 | 96.7% | 162 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on SMF–SLC | 1,503 | 88.9% | 82 min | 1.20% | A |
| All carriers on SMF–SLC | 2,165 | 87.0% | 74 min | 0.88% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1526 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 1526 held fairly steady: 100.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 98.9% in Oct–Dec 2025, 96.7% in Jan–Mar 2026, 93.3% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 96.7% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights100.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights98.9%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights96.7%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights93.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights96.7%
Scale runs 85% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1526 ranged from 90.4% on Tuesday to 100.0% on Friday. 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.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1526 runs when it is late
DL 1526 often beats the schedule: 189 of 362 completed flights, 52%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 12 late arrivals split 5 under half an hour, 2 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 5 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early189 flights52.2%
- Within 15 min161 flights44.5%
- 15–29 min late5 flights1.4%
- 30–59 min late2 flights0.6%
- 1–2 hours late2 flights0.6%
- 2+ hours late3 flights0.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 362 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Only 12 of 362 completed flights left 15 minutes late or more, too few to say how often the time is made up.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1526
The latest arrival of the period was on 10 May 2026, 12 hours 5 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 10 May 2026 | 12 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 January 2026 | 11 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 March 2026 | 2 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 June 2026 | 1 hour 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 June 2026 | 1 hour 31 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why DL 1526 runs late
Carrier accounts for 93% of the 1,949 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 93%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 3%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 93%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,803 of the 1,949 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,949 delay minutes reported on DL 1526.
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 1.4% 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 532 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.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including IAH to DTW (1), but none flew often enough under DL 1526 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SMF to SLC only.
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 1526
For a booking, DL 1526 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 96.7% on time and 0.82% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- SMF to SLC, every carrier and departure
- SLC to SMF, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1423 on the same route86.2%
- Delta Air Lines 1342 on the same route82.6%
- Delta Air Lines 1367 on the same route90.7%
- Sacramento International (SMF) 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
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.