Flight number record
DL 1606
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to West Palm Beach
- Route
- ATL → PBI
- Departs
- 19:54
- Flights
- 332
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 332 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 1606 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 81 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 328 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.20%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
10.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 332 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 332 flights, with 19:59 (60 flights) and 20:30 (55 flights) next.
- Departs 19:5462 flights18.7%
- Departs 19:5960 flights18.1%
- Departs 20:3055 flights16.6%
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 19:54 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 1606 runs level with that at 69.2%. 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 1606 next to ATL to PBI
Every carrier on ATL to PBI combined arrived on time 75.8% of the time across 3,475 flights, so DL 1606 is 7 points behind it. Delta flew 3,402 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 12 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1606thin sample | 332 | 69.2% | 58 min | 1.20% | C |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–PBI | 3,402 | 76.4% | 52 min | 1.62% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–PBI | 3,475 | 75.8% | 54 min | 1.61% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | 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 2026 at 43.3%, a swing of 31 points on roughly 83 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 202528 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights69.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights73.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights72.5%
- Jul–Sep 202631 flights43.3%
Scale runs 35% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1606 did best on Tuesday at 83.3% on time and worst on Sunday at 57.4%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 26 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1606 runs when it is late
The 101 late arrivals split 38 under half an hour, 30 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 33 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early29 flights8.8%
- Within 15 min198 flights60.4%
- 15–29 min late38 flights11.6%
- 30–59 min late30 flights9.1%
- 1–2 hours late22 flights6.7%
- 2+ hours late11 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 328 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 100 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 11 made it up before arrival. 12 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1606
The latest arrival of the period was on 9 November 2025, 4 hours 47 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across November, October and July, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 9 November 2025 | 4 hours 47 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 10 October 2025 | 3 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 November 2025 | 3 hours 24 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 July 2026 | 3 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 July 2026 | 2 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1606 runs late
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 5,877 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,877 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 5,877 delay minutes reported on DL 1606.
Cancellations sit at 1.20% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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.
Every one of the 332 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. 332 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 838 on the same route78.4%
- Delta Air Lines 1527 on the same route82.7%
- Delta Air Lines 959 on the same route73.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1190 on the same route80.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1458 on the same route74.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1311 on the same route88.8%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Palm Beach International (PBI) 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.