Flight number record
DL 2038
Delta Air Lines · Salt Lake City to Newark
- Route
- SLC → EWR
- Departs
- 23:38
- Flights
- 358
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2038, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2038 earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 358 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2038's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 84 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 349 completed flights
Avg delay
43 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.23%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 358 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 2038 flies
DL 2038 flies SLC to EWR without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 23:38, used on 48 of 358 flights, with 17:45 (45 flights) and 23:49 (41 flights) next.
- Departs 23:3848 flights13.4%
- Departs 17:4545 flights12.6%
- Departs 23:4941 flights11.5%
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 23:38 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 2038 runs 16 points better at 85.7%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
DL 2038 next to SLC to EWR
Every carrier on SLC to EWR combined arrived on time 80.1% of the time across 1,338 flights, so DL 2038 is 6 points ahead of it. Delta flew 723 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2038thin sample | 358 | 85.7% | 43 min | 2.23% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on SLC–EWR | 723 | 81.6% | 60 min | 2.63% | B |
| All carriers on SLC–EWR | 1,338 | 80.1% | 74 min | 2.47% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2038 quarter by quarter
DL 2038 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 79.7%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 72 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 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202587 flights89.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights87.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights82.2%
- Jul–Sep 202660 flights79.7%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2038 did best on Sunday at 92.0% on time and worst on Saturday at 75.0%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 17 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2038 runs when it is late
DL 2038 often beats the schedule: 104 of 349 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 30 of the 50 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 11 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early104 flights29.8%
- Within 15 min195 flights55.9%
- 15–29 min late30 flights8.6%
- 30–59 min late9 flights2.6%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights2.0%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 349 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 48 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 16 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 18 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at EWR.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2038
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 February 2026, 3 hours 27 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in February 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 February 2026 | 3 hours 27 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 December 2025 | 3 hours 2 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 January 2026 | 2 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 February 2026 | 2 hours 2 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 February 2026 | 1 hour 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 2038 runs late
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 2,168 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 36%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 988 of the 2,168 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,168 delay minutes reported on DL 2038.
Cancellations sit at 2.23% 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 3.2% 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.
At 1,969 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.
Every one of the 358 flights under DL 2038 in the data flew SLC to EWR. 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. 358 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 2038
For a booking, read DL 2038 as 85.7% on time with 2.23% cancelled over 358 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- SLC to EWR, every carrier and departure
- EWR to SLC, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2033 on the same route81.3%
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) 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.