Flight number record
DL 1706
Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Detroit
- Route
- SEA → DTW
- Departs
- 11:43
- Flights
- 302
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1706, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1706 lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 302 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 297 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.32%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 302 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Schedule
When DL 1706 flies
DL 1706 flies SEA to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 11:43, used on 43 of 302 flights, with 09:55 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 11:4343 flights14.2%
- Departs 09:5536 flights11.9%
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 11:43 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 1706 runs 3 points better at 80.8%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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 1706 next to SEA to DTW
Every carrier on SEA to DTW combined arrived on time 86.6% of the time across 2,063 flights, so DL 1706 is 6 points behind it. Delta flew 1,515 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 87.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1706thin sample | 302 | 80.8% | 61 min | 1.32% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on SEA–DTW | 1,515 | 87.1% | 71 min | 0.86% | A+ |
| All carriers on SEA–DTW | 2,063 | 86.6% | 65 min | 0.68% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1706 quarter by quarter
DL 1706 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 71.2%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 76 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 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights81.1%
- Jan–Mar 202628 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights80.2%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights71.2%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1706 did best on Tuesday at 88.1% on time and worst on Wednesday at 74.4%. Each day rests on about 43 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1706 runs when it is late
The 57 late arrivals split 21 under half an hour, 18 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 18 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early70 flights23.6%
- Within 15 min170 flights57.2%
- 15–29 min late21 flights7.1%
- 30–59 min late18 flights6.1%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights3.4%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 297 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
18 of 66 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 27% of them. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1706
The latest arrival of the period was on 22 May 2026, 4 hours 56 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 22 May 2026 | 4 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 March 2026 | 3 hours 27 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 12 August 2026 | 3 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 September 2025 | 2 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 July 2026 | 2 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1706 runs late
Carrier accounts for 49% of the 3,488 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,712 of the 3,488 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,488 delay minutes reported on DL 1706.
Cancellations sit at 1.32% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
6.1% 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.
At 1,927 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including MIA to JFK (36) and ATL to VPS (13), but none flew often enough under DL 1706 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SEA to DTW only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 302 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 1706
For a booking, DL 1706 is one of the weaker ways to fly SEA to DTW: 6 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to DTW, every carrier and departure
- DTW to SEA, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 812 on the same route92.0%
- Alaska Airlines 313 on the same route85.3%
- Delta Air Lines 810 on the same route89.6%
- Delta Air Lines 533 on the same route85.1%
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) 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
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.