Flight number record
DL 1544
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Chicago
- Route
- MSP → ORD
- Departs
- 07:00
- Flights
- 342
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1544, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1544 lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 342 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1544's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 56 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 339 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.58%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 342 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 1544 flies
DL 1544 flies MSP to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 172 of 342 flights, with 06:55 (124 flights) next.
- Departs 07:00172 flights50.3%
- Departs 06:55124 flights36.3%
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 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 1544 runs 6 points worse at 82.9%. 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 1544 next to MSP to ORD
Every carrier on MSP to ORD combined arrived on time 70.0% of the time across 6,395 flights, so DL 1544 is 13 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,425 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 67.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1544thin sample | 342 | 82.9% | 64 min | 0.58% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–ORD | 1,425 | 67.6% | 72 min | 2.53% | C |
| All carriers on MSP–ORD | 6,395 | 70.0% | 83 min | 2.85% | C |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1544 quarter by quarter
DL 1544 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 76.9%, a swing of 16 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 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202578 flights76.9%
- Jan–Mar 202683 flights80.2%
- Apr–Jun 202689 flights91.0%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights77.0%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1544 ranged from 75.0% on Saturday to 86.3% on Monday. With about 49 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1544 runs when it is late
DL 1544 often beats the schedule: 114 of 339 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 58 late arrivals split 24 under half an hour, 13 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 21 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early114 flights33.6%
- Within 15 min167 flights49.3%
- 15–29 min late24 flights7.1%
- 30–59 min late13 flights3.8%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights2.9%
- 2+ hours late11 flights3.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 339 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 34 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 3 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 27 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 ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1544
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 December 2025, 4 hours 13 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 December 2025 | 4 hours 13 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 September 2025 | 3 hours 46 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 8 August 2026 | 3 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 November 2025 | 2 hours 53 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 5 September 2025 | 2 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1544 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 52% of the 3,730 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%National Airspace System
- 46%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,703 of the 3,730 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,730 delay minutes reported on DL 1544.
Cancellations are rare at 0.58%, 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
6.2% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including EGE to ATL (16) and ATL to EGE (16), but none flew often enough under DL 1544 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to MSP to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 342 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 1544
For a booking, read DL 1544 as 82.9% on time with 0.58% cancelled over 342 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to MSP, the return direction
- United Airlines 1531 on the same route54.6%
- United Airlines 576 on the same route71.0%
- United Airlines 658 on the same route57.1%
- United Airlines 758 on the same route76.9%
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) 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.