Flight number record
DL 1540
Delta Air Lines · Philadelphia to Detroit
- Route
- PHL → DTW
- Departs
- 06:00
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1540, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1540 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 3.1 hours. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1540's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 134 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 356 completed flights
Avg delay
184 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.47%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.9%
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 1540 flies
DL 1540 flies PHL to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:00, used on 188 of 365 flights, with 06:05 (89 flights) and 06:10 (57 flights) next.
- Departs 06:00188 flights51.5%
- Departs 06:0589 flights24.4%
- Departs 06:1057 flights15.6%
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 06:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1540 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.
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Against the route
DL 1540 next to PHL to DTW
Every carrier on PHL to DTW combined arrived on time 79.1% of the time across 3,000 flights, so DL 1540 is 12 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,582 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 82.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 10 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1540 | 365 | 90.7% | 184 min | 2.47% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on PHL–DTW | 1,582 | 82.3% | 106 min | 2.47% | B |
| All carriers on PHL–DTW | 3,000 | 79.1% | 99 min | 3.90% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1540 quarter by quarter
DL 1540 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 100.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 85.2%, a swing of 15 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 flights100.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights87.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights94.4%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights85.2%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1540 ranged from 86.3% on Tuesday to 98.1% on Wednesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 12 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1540 runs when it is late
DL 1540 often beats the schedule: 181 of 356 completed flights, 51%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When DL 1540 is late it tends to be very late: 21 of its 33 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 17 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early181 flights50.8%
- Within 15 min142 flights39.9%
- 15–29 min late5 flights1.4%
- 30–59 min late7 flights2.0%
- 1–2 hours late4 flights1.1%
- 2+ hours late17 flights4.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 356 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
7 of 35 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. Only 5 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1540
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 January 2026, 15 hours 11 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Four of the five worst days fell in January 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 January 2026 | 15 hours 11 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 January 2026 | 8 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 January 2026 | 8 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 January 2026 | 6 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 December 2025 | 5 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1540 runs late
Carrier accounts for 91% of the 6,055 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 91%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 3%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 91%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,533 of the 6,055 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,055 delay minutes reported on DL 1540.
Cancellations sit at 2.47% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.9% 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 about 3.1 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
Every one of the 365 flights under DL 1540 in the data flew PHL 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 1540
For a booking, read DL 1540 as 90.7% on time with 2.47% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to DTW, every carrier and departure
- DTW to PHL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2968 on the same route88.5%
- Philadelphia International (PHL) 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.