Flight number record
DL 1611
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Atlanta
- Route
- DTW → ATL
- Departs
- 06:17
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1611, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1611 earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 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 365 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1611's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 99 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 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 1611 flies
DL 1611 flies DTW to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:17, used on 57 of 365 flights, with 07:15 (50 flights) and 07:00 (45 flights) next.
- Departs 06:1757 flights15.6%
- Departs 07:1550 flights13.7%
- Departs 07:0045 flights12.3%
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 06:17 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1611 runs 2 points worse at 87.2%. 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 1611 next to DTW to ATL
Every carrier on DTW to ATL combined arrived on time 78.9% of the time across 4,832 flights, so DL 1611 is 8 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,780 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.2% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 6 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1611 | 365 | 87.2% | 72 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on DTW–ATL | 3,780 | 81.2% | 68 min | 0.48% | B+ |
| All carriers on DTW–ATL | 4,832 | 78.9% | 75 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1611 quarter by quarter
DL 1611 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 100.0% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 78.2%, a swing of 22 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 flights100.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights82.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights78.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights92.1%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights93.5%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1611 ranged from 82.4% on Sunday to 92.3% on Wednesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1611 runs when it is late
DL 1611 often beats the schedule: 104 of 359 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 46 late arrivals split 22 under half an hour, 13 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 11 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early104 flights29.0%
- Within 15 min209 flights58.2%
- 15–29 min late22 flights6.1%
- 30–59 min late13 flights3.6%
- 1–2 hours late5 flights1.4%
- 2+ hours late6 flights1.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 359 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
4 of 33 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 12% of them. 17 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1611
The latest arrival of the period was on 9 April 2026, 12 hours 36 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 9 April 2026 | 12 hours 36 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 5 hours 51 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 17 January 2026 | 4 hours | Carrier |
| 29 July 2026 | 3 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 March 2026 | 3 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 1611 runs late
Carrier accounts for 63% of the 3,287 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 63%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 6%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 63%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,087 of the 3,287 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,287 delay minutes reported on DL 1611.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.1% 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.
The 594 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 365 flights under DL 1611 in the data flew DTW to ATL. 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. 365 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 1611
For a booking, DL 1611 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 87.2% on time and 0.82% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2856 on the same route86.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1467 on the same route76.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2375 on the same route91.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2053 on the same route72.4%
- Delta Air Lines 965 on the same route86.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2188 on the same route67.2%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- 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
- 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.