Flight number record
DL 1606
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to West Palm Beach
- Route
- ATL → PBI
- Departs
- 19:54
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1606, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1606 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 1606 runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 85 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
8.1%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 363 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Schedule
When DL 1606 flies
DL 1606 flies ATL to PBI without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 19:54, used on 62 of 363 flights, with 19:59 (60 flights) and 18:59 (55 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 19:5462 flights17.1%
- Departs 19:5960 flights16.5%
- Departs 18:5955 flights15.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 19:54 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 1606 runs level with that at 69.1%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
Against the route
DL 1606 next to ATL to PBI
Every carrier on ATL to PBI combined arrived on time 75.7% of the time across 3,826 flights, so DL 1606 is 7 points behind it. Delta flew 3,737 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 13 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1606thin sample | 363 | 69.1% | 55 min | 1.10% | C |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–PBI | 3,737 | 76.3% | 52 min | 1.53% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–PBI | 3,826 | 75.7% | 54 min | 1.52% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 1606 quarter by quarter
DL 1606 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 73.9% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 60.7%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 91 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 202590 flights60.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights69.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights73.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights72.5%
Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1606 did best on Tuesday at 81.1% on time and worst on Thursday at 52.9%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 28 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 1606 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 6,095 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 45%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 6,095 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 6,095 delay minutes reported on DL 1606.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 545 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
Every one of the 363 flights under DL 1606 in the data flew ATL to PBI. 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. 363 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 1606
For a booking, DL 1606 is one of the weaker ways to fly ATL to PBI: 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 PBI, every carrier and departure
- PBI to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1527 on the same route80.0%
- Delta Air Lines 838 on the same route78.3%
- Delta Air Lines 959 on the same route72.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1311 on the same route89.0%
- Delta Air Lines 1458 on the same route75.6%
- Delta Air Lines 1495 on the same route73.2%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.