Flight number record
DL 1558
Delta Air Lines · Washington to Detroit
- Route
- DCA → DTW
- Departs
- 09:39
- Flights
- 361
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1558, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1558 earns a B−. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 361 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1558's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 72 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 348 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.60%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.9%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 361 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 1558 flies
DL 1558 flies DCA to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:39, used on 115 of 361 flights, with 09:40 (92 flights) and 09:54 (62 flights) next.
- Departs 09:39115 flights31.9%
- Departs 09:4092 flights25.5%
- Departs 09:5462 flights17.2%
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 09:39 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 1558 runs level with that at 84.5%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Against the route
DL 1558 next to DCA to DTW
Every carrier on DCA to DTW combined arrived on time 75.3% of the time across 2,972 flights, so DL 1558 is 9 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,741 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 78.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1558thin sample | 361 | 84.5% | 71 min | 3.60% | B− |
| All Delta Air Lines on DCA–DTW | 1,741 | 78.3% | 84 min | 2.93% | B |
| All carriers on DCA–DTW | 2,972 | 75.3% | 82 min | 4.04% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1558 quarter by quarter
DL 1558 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 77.9%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 72 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 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights80.2%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights77.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights88.8%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights87.7%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1558 did best on Saturday at 93.9% on time and worst on Tuesday at 74.5%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1558 runs when it is late
DL 1558 often beats the schedule: 178 of 348 completed flights, 51%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 54 late arrivals split 15 under half an hour, 22 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 17 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early178 flights51.1%
- Within 15 min116 flights33.3%
- 15–29 min late15 flights4.3%
- 30–59 min late22 flights6.3%
- 1–2 hours late9 flights2.6%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 348 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
8 of 57 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. Only 5 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1558
The latest arrival of the period was on 10 March 2026, 11 hours 11 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 March 2026 | 11 hours 11 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 March 2026 | 5 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 April 2026 | 3 hours 45 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 September 2025 | 2 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 July 2026 | 2 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1558 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 3,832 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 3,832 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 56 to one. The split is drawn from 3,832 delay minutes reported on DL 1558.
Cancellations run at 3.60%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% 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.
DL 1558 is not only a DCA to DTW flight. It also flew DTW to DCA (361 flights, 80.7% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 361 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DTW to DCAthin sample | 361 | 80.7% | 53 min | 3.60% | B− |
What to do with this
Booking DL 1558
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 1558: 3.60% of its 361 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs a little over an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to DTW, every carrier and departure
- DTW to DCA, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1454 on the same route62.5%
- Delta Air Lines 2476 on the same route83.7%
- Delta Air Lines 2869 on the same route92.8%
- Delta Air Lines 2030 on the same route66.9%
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) 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
- 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.