Flight number record

DL 2038

Delta Air Lines · Salt Lake City to Newark

Route: SLC → EWR
Departs: 23:59
Flights: 357
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2038, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2038 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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 357 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 2038's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 109 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

88.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights

Avg delay

47 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.52%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

2.9%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 357 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 2038 flies

DL 2038 flies SLC to EWR without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 23:59, used on 62 of 357 flights, with 17:45 (45 flights) and 23:49 (41 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 23:5962 flights17.4%
Departs 17:4545 flights12.6%
Departs 23:4941 flights11.5%

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 23:59 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 2038 runs 18 points better at 88.5%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

Against the route

DL 2038 next to SLC to EWR

Every carrier on SLC to EWR combined arrived on time 79.9% of the time across 1,337 flights, so DL 2038 is 9 points ahead of it. Delta flew 722 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.7% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 7 points.

DL 2038 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2038thin sample	357	88.5%	47 min	2.52%	A
All Delta Air Lines on SLC–EWR	722	81.7%	65 min	2.49%	B
All carriers on SLC–EWR	1,337	79.9%	73 min	2.47%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	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 95.4% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 82.2%, a swing of 13 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 202589 flights95.4%
Oct–Dec 202587 flights89.4%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights87.1%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights82.2%

Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2038 did best on Sunday at 94.0% on time and worst on Thursday at 80.0%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 2038 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 48% of the 1,875 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
48%
National Airspace System
32%
Late-arriving aircraft
18%
Extreme weather
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, 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 905 of the 1,875 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,875 delay minutes reported on DL 2038.

Cancellations run at 2.52%, against 1.81% 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

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 357 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. 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.

What to do with this

Booking DL 2038

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2038: 2.52% of its 357 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs roughly 45 minutes, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

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