Flight number record

DL 1720

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Tampa

Route: ATL → TPA
Departs: 13:25
Flights: 357
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1720, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 1720 sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 357 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

On time

75.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 352 completed flights

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.12%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

6.8%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 357 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 1720 flies

DL 1720 flies ATL to TPA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 13:25, used on 116 of 357 flights, with 13:40 (54 flights) and 14:33 (39 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 13:25116 flights32.5%
Departs 13:4054 flights15.1%
Departs 14:3339 flights10.9%

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 13:25 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and DL 1720 runs 3 points worse at 75.6%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

DL 1720 next to ATL to TPA

Every carrier on ATL to TPA combined arrived on time 73.3% of the time across 6,141 flights, so DL 1720 is 2 points ahead of it. Delta flew 4,413 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 6 points.

DL 1720 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 1720thin sample	357	75.6%	54 min	1.12%	B
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–TPA	4,413	74.6%	55 min	1.18%	C
All carriers on ATL–TPA	6,141	73.3%	61 min	1.22%	C
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 1720 quarter by quarter

DL 1720 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 86.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 67.8%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 89 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 202591 flights67.8%
Oct–Dec 202587 flights72.1%
Jan–Mar 202689 flights86.0%
Apr–Jun 202690 flights76.7%

Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 1720 did best on Monday at 80.4% on time and worst on Sunday at 62.5%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 18 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 1720 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 51% of the 4,681 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
51%
Late-arriving aircraft
25%
National Airspace System
19%
Extreme weather
5%

The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, 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 2,404 of the 4,681 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,681 delay minutes reported on DL 1720.

Cancellations sit at 1.12% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

6.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

DL 1720 is not only a ATL to TPA flight. It also flew TPA to ATL (303 flights, 75.2% 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. 357 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.

Other routes flown as DL 1720
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
TPA to ATLthin sample	303	75.2%	71 min	1.32%	B

What to do with this

Booking DL 1720

For a booking, read DL 1720 as 75.6% on time with 1.12% cancelled over 357 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