Flight number record

DL 2073

Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Washington

Route: DTW → DCA
Departs: 21:28
Flights: 360
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2073, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2073 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 360 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 2073 runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 93 extra late arrivals.

On time

68.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights

Avg delay

68 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.78%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

10.0%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 360 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Schedule

When DL 2073 flies

DL 2073 flies DTW to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:28, used on 118 of 360 flights, with 21:22 (60 flights) and 21:29 (41 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 21:28118 flights32.8%
Departs 21:2260 flights16.7%
Departs 21:2941 flights11.4%

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 21:28 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 2073 runs 2 points worse at 68.3%. 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 2073 next to DTW to DCA

Every carrier on DTW to DCA combined arrived on time 68.6% of the time across 2,978 flights, so DL 2073 is about level with it. Delta flew 1,745 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 68.8% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 13 points.

DL 2073 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2073thin sample	360	68.3%	68 min	2.78%	C
All Delta Air Lines on DTW–DCA	1,745	68.8%	62 min	2.29%	C
All carriers on DTW–DCA	2,978	68.6%	81 min	3.86%	C−
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2073 quarter by quarter

DL 2073 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 72.2% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 61.9%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 90 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 202592 flights71.9%
Oct–Dec 202590 flights72.2%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights61.9%
Apr–Jun 202688 flights66.7%

Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2073 did best on Saturday at 81.6% on time and worst on Sunday at 62.0%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 2073 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 7,533 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
47%
National Airspace System
32%
Late-arriving aircraft
20%
Extreme weather
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, 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 3,541 of the 7,533 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,533 delay minutes reported on DL 2073.

Cancellations run at 2.78%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

Every one of the 360 flights under DL 2073 in the data flew DTW to DCA. 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. 360 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 2073

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2073: 2.78% of its 360 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about an hour, 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