Flight number record
DL 1609
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to St. Louis
- Route
- MSP → STL
- Departs
- 21:51
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1609, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1609 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 1609 flies
DL 1609 flies MSP to STL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:51, used on 102 of 364 flights, with 21:50 (84 flights) next.
- Departs 21:51102 flights28.0%
- Departs 21:5084 flights23.1%
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 21:51 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 1609 runs 5 points better at 74.9%. 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 1609 next to MSP to STL
Every carrier on MSP to STL combined arrived on time 79.6% of the time across 1,958 flights, so DL 1609 is 5 points behind it. Delta flew 906 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 6 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1609thin sample | 364 | 74.9% | 58 min | 1.10% | C |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–STL | 906 | 79.9% | 63 min | 1.10% | B |
| All carriers on MSP–STL | 1,958 | 79.6% | 65 min | 0.87% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1609 quarter by quarter
DL 1609 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 62.9%, a swing of 20 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 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights70.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights83.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights77.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights62.9%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 1609 did best on Tuesday at 80.8% on time and worst on Friday at 65.4%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1609 runs when it is late
DL 1609 often beats the schedule: 99 of 359 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 90 late arrivals split 31 under half an hour, 30 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 29 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early99 flights27.6%
- Within 15 min170 flights47.4%
- 15–29 min late31 flights8.6%
- 30–59 min late30 flights8.4%
- 1–2 hours late25 flights7.0%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 359 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 88 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. 17 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1609
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 October 2025, 12 hours 55 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 23 October 2025 | 12 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 August 2026 | 2 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 August 2026 | 2 hours 3 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 October 2025 | 2 hours 2 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 June 2026 | 1 hour 58 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1609 runs late
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 5,225 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,775 of the 5,225 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,225 delay minutes reported on DL 1609.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, 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.
Every one of the 364 flights under DL 1609 in the data flew MSP to STL. 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. 364 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 1609
For a booking, read DL 1609 as 74.9% on time with 1.10% cancelled over 364 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to STL, every carrier and departure
- STL to MSP, the return direction
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- St. Louis Lambert International (STL) 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.