Flight number record

DL 1618

Delta Air Lines · Birmingham to Atlanta

Route: BHM → ATL
Departs: 06:20
Flights: 361
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1618, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 1618 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 11 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 361 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 1618's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 107 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

88.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 351 completed flights

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.49%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

3.1%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 361 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 13 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.

Schedule

When DL 1618 flies

DL 1618 flies BHM to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:20, used on 139 of 361 flights, with 06:30 (61 flights) and 06:15 (45 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 06:20139 flights38.5%
Departs 06:3061 flights16.9%
Departs 06:1545 flights12.5%

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 06:20 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1618 runs level with that at 88.3%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

DL 1618 next to BHM to ATL

Every carrier on BHM to ATL combined arrived on time 88.3% of the time across 3,306 flights, so DL 1618 is about level with it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 7 points.

DL 1618 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 1618thin sample	361	88.3%	64 min	2.49%	A
All Delta Air Lines on BHM–ATL	3,306	88.3%	89 min	1.72%	A
All carriers on BHM–ATL	3,306	88.3%	89 min	1.72%	A
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 1618 quarter by quarter

DL 1618 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.5% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 75.0%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 90 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 202592 flights93.5%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights93.2%
Jan–Mar 202687 flights75.0%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights90.8%

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 1618 ranged from 85.4% on Saturday to 94.0% on Wednesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 9 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Delay causes

Why DL 1618 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 54% of the 2,609 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.

Carrier
54%
National Airspace System
36%
Late-arriving aircraft
6%
Extreme weather
5%

The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,408 of the 2,609 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,609 delay minutes reported on DL 1618.

Cancellations sit at 2.49% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.

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 8.1% 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.

Every one of the 361 flights under DL 1618 in the data flew BHM 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. 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.

What to do with this

Booking DL 1618

For a booking, read DL 1618 as 88.3% on time with 2.49% cancelled over 361 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures