Flight number record
DL 1531
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Albuquerque
- Route
- ATL → ABQ
- Departs
- 20:53
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1531, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1531 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 about 45 minutes on average. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights
Avg delay
46 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Schedule
When DL 1531 flies
DL 1531 flies ATL to ABQ without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 20:53, used on 89 of 365 flights, with 21:15 (58 flights) and 21:25 (39 flights) next.
- Departs 20:5389 flights24.4%
- Departs 21:1558 flights15.9%
- Departs 21:2539 flights10.7%
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 20:53 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 1531 runs 6 points better at 76.4%. 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 1531 next to ATL to ABQ
Every carrier on ATL to ABQ combined arrived on time 83.3% of the time across 1,002 flights, so DL 1531 is 7 points behind it. 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 1531 | 365 | 76.4% | 46 min | 1.37% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–ABQ | 1,002 | 83.3% | 51 min | 1.40% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–ABQ | 1,002 | 83.3% | 51 min | 1.40% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1531 quarter by quarter
DL 1531 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 85.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 56.5%, a swing of 29 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 flights70.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights82.0%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights77.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights85.7%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights56.5%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 1531 ranged from 72.0% on Sunday to 78.4% on Friday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 6 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1531 runs when it is late
DL 1531 often beats the schedule: 101 of 360 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 85 late arrivals split 35 under half an hour, 34 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 16 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early101 flights28.1%
- Within 15 min174 flights48.3%
- 15–29 min late35 flights9.7%
- 30–59 min late34 flights9.4%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights3.1%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 360 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
19 of 83 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. In the other direction, 21 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ABQ.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1531
The latest arrival of the period was on 15 March 2026, 3 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 15 March 2026 | 3 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 May 2026 | 2 hours 56 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 June 2026 | 2 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 August 2026 | 2 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 July 2026 | 2 hours 1 minute | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 1531 runs late
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 3,896 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,859 of the 3,896 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,896 delay minutes reported on DL 1531.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.4% 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 1,269 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 1531 in the data flew ATL to ABQ. 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 1531
For a booking, DL 1531 is one of the weaker ways to fly ATL to ABQ: 7 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to ABQ, every carrier and departure
- ABQ to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1004 on the same route91.3%
- Delta Air Lines 1109 on the same route83.8%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) 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.