Flight number record
DL 1704
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Des Moines
- Route
- ATL → DSM
- Departs
- 09:30
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1704, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1704 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1704's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 108 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 353 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.48%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 363 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 1704 flies
DL 1704 flies ATL to DSM without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:30, used on 73 of 363 flights, with 09:31 (49 flights) next.
- Departs 09:3073 flights20.1%
- Departs 09:3149 flights13.5%
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 09:30 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 1704 runs 4 points better at 88.1%. 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 1704 next to ATL to DSM
Every carrier on ATL to DSM combined arrived on time 84.7% of the time across 1,253 flights, so DL 1704 is 3 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 7 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1704thin sample | 363 | 88.1% | 57 min | 2.48% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–DSM | 1,253 | 84.7% | 63 min | 2.39% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–DSM | 1,253 | 84.7% | 63 min | 2.39% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1704 quarter by quarter
DL 1704 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 95.2% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 81.0%, a swing of 14 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 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights84.3%
- Jan–Mar 202688 flights81.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights93.2%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights95.2%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1704 ranged from 84.6% on Tuesday 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.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1704 runs when it is late
DL 1704 often beats the schedule: 114 of 353 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 42 late arrivals split 16 under half an hour, 12 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 14 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early114 flights32.3%
- Within 15 min197 flights55.8%
- 15–29 min late16 flights4.5%
- 30–59 min late12 flights3.4%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights3.1%
- 2+ hours late3 flights0.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 353 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
10 of 41 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. 11 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1704
The latest arrival of the period was on 30 November 2025, 4 hours 18 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 30 November 2025 | 4 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 December 2025 | 3 hours 45 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 November 2025 | 2 hours 2 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 January 2026 | 1 hour 53 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 25 March 2026 | 1 hour 44 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1704 runs late
Carrier accounts for 64% of the 2,372 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 64%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 64%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,522 of the 2,372 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,372 delay minutes reported on DL 1704.
Cancellations sit at 2.48% against a national 1.89%, 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 4.0% 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 743 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.
DL 1704 is not only a ATL to DSM flight. It also flew DSM to ATL (363 flights, 88.9% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 363 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DSM to ATLthin sample | 363 | 88.9% | 84 min | 2.20% | A |
What to do with this
Booking DL 1704
For a booking, read DL 1704 as 88.1% on time with 2.48% cancelled over 363 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to DSM, every carrier and departure
- DSM to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2306 on the same route82.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2086 on the same route80.7%
- 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.