Flight number record
DL 2053
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Atlanta
- Route
- DTW → ATL
- Departs
- 18:04
- Flights
- 356
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2053, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2053 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 356 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 2053 runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 355 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
12.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 356 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 2053 flies
DL 2053 flies DTW to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:04, used on 64 of 356 flights, with 18:00 (39 flights) and 18:09 (37 flights) next.
- Departs 18:0464 flights18.0%
- Departs 18:0039 flights11.0%
- Departs 18:0937 flights10.4%
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 18:04 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 2053 runs 4 points better at 72.4%. 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 2053 next to DTW to ATL
Every carrier on DTW to ATL combined arrived on time 78.9% of the time across 4,832 flights, so DL 2053 is 7 points behind it. Delta flew 3,780 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.2% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2053thin sample | 356 | 72.4% | 73 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on DTW–ATL | 3,780 | 81.2% | 68 min | 0.48% | B+ |
| All carriers on DTW–ATL | 4,832 | 78.9% | 75 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2053 quarter by quarter
DL 2053 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 58.3%, a swing of 35 points on roughly 71 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 202592 flights72.8%
- Jan–Mar 202683 flights76.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights70.3%
- Jul–Sep 202660 flights58.3%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2053 did best on Tuesday at 79.6% on time and worst on Friday at 66.7%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2053 runs when it is late
DL 2053 often beats the schedule: 107 of 355 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 98 late arrivals split 29 under half an hour, 25 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 44 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early107 flights30.1%
- Within 15 min150 flights42.3%
- 15–29 min late29 flights8.2%
- 30–59 min late25 flights7.0%
- 1–2 hours late25 flights7.0%
- 2+ hours late19 flights5.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 355 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 130 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 41 still arrived on time. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2053
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 March 2026, 7 hours 6 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 16 March 2026 | 7 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 July 2026 | 6 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 July 2026 | 4 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 December 2025 | 3 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 3 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2053 runs late
Carrier accounts for 57% of the 7,130 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,054 of the 7,130 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,130 delay minutes reported on DL 2053.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
12.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 594 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.
Every one of the 356 flights under DL 2053 in the data flew DTW to ATL. 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. 356 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 2053
For a booking, DL 2053 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 12.4% of its completed flights arrived an hour or more late, which a short layover will not absorb. If the onward flight is on a separate ticket, the risk sits with you.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2856 on the same route86.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1611 on the same route87.2%
- Delta Air Lines 1467 on the same route76.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2375 on the same route91.2%
- Delta Air Lines 965 on the same route86.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2188 on the same route67.2%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.