Flight number record
DL 1626
Delta Air Lines · St. Louis to Detroit
- Route
- STL → DTW
- Departs
- 06:40
- Flights
- 347
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1626, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1626 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 14 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.4 hours. That rests on 347 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1626's record is 14 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 144 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
91.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 338 completed flights
Avg delay
146 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.59%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.9%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 347 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 1626 flies
DL 1626 flies STL to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:40, used on 90 of 347 flights, with 06:30 (86 flights) and 06:35 (60 flights) next.
- Departs 06:4090 flights25.9%
- Departs 06:3086 flights24.8%
- Departs 06:3560 flights17.3%
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 06:40 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1626 runs 2 points better at 91.7%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Against the route
DL 1626 next to STL to DTW
Every carrier on STL to DTW combined arrived on time 81.1% of the time across 1,899 flights, so DL 1626 is 11 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,104 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 88.2% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 11 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1626thin sample | 347 | 91.7% | 146 min | 2.59% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on STL–DTW | 1,104 | 88.2% | 111 min | 1.81% | A |
| All carriers on STL–DTW | 1,899 | 81.1% | 85 min | 1.21% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1626 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 1626 held fairly steady: 88.2% in Oct–Dec 2025, 91.6% in Jan–Mar 2026, 91.2% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 93.2% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 5 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202529 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202579 flights88.2%
- Jan–Mar 202686 flights91.6%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights91.2%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights93.2%
Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1626 did best on Thursday at 98.0% on time and worst on Sunday at 85.4%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1626 runs when it is late
DL 1626 often beats the schedule: 174 of 338 completed flights, 51%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When DL 1626 is late it tends to be very late: 20 of its 28 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 12 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early174 flights51.5%
- Within 15 min136 flights40.2%
- 15–29 min late5 flights1.5%
- 30–59 min late3 flights0.9%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights2.4%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 338 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 26 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 2 made it up before arrival. Only 4 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1626
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 August 2026, 12 hours 11 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 11 August 2026 | 12 hours 11 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 October 2025 | 7 hours 2 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 June 2026 | 6 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 June 2026 | 4 hours 31 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 April 2026 | 4 hours | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1626 runs late
Carrier accounts for 84% of the 4,095 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 84%Carrier
- 8%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 3%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 84%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,434 of the 4,095 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,095 delay minutes reported on DL 1626.
Cancellations run at 2.59%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.9% 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 2.4 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including JFK to BOS (16), but none flew often enough under DL 1626 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to STL to DTW only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 347 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 1626
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 1626: 2.59% of its 347 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 2.4 hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- STL to DTW, every carrier and departure
- DTW to STL, the return direction
- St. Louis Lambert International (STL) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.