Flight number record

DL 2121

Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to San Diego

Route: MSP → SAN
Departs: 08:50
Flights: 341
Period: September 2025 to August 2026

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2121, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2121 lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 40 minutes on average. That rests on 341 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 2121's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 49 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 338 completed flights

Avg delay

39 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.88%

National rate is 1.89%

1 hour+ late

2.4%

National rate is 8.3%

These figures cover 341 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 2121 flies

DL 2121 flies MSP to SAN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:50, used on 93 of 341 flights, with 08:55 (64 flights) and 08:51 (56 flights) next.

Departs 08:5093 flights27.3%
Departs 08:5564 flights18.8%
Departs 08:5156 flights16.4%

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 08:50 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 2121 runs level with that at 82.2%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

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Against the route

DL 2121 next to MSP to SAN

Every carrier on MSP to SAN combined arrived on time 77.6% of the time across 1,300 flights, so DL 2121 is 5 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, close to this flight's figure.

DL 2121 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2121thin sample	341	82.2%	39 min	0.88%	B+
All Delta Air Lines on MSP–SAN	1,300	77.6%	46 min	0.85%	B+
All carriers on MSP–SAN	1,300	77.6%	46 min	0.85%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,039,517	81.1%	71 min	1.74%	B

Across the year

DL 2121 quarter by quarter

DL 2121 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 88.5% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 78.5%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 68 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 flights83.3%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights79.3%
Jan–Mar 202666 flights78.5%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights83.3%
Jul–Sep 202662 flights88.5%

Scale runs 70% to 95%.

By weekday, DL 2121 did best on Tuesday at 87.8% on time and worst on Monday at 74.0%. Each day rests on about 49 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Arrival by arrival

How late DL 2121 runs when it is late

Most of the lateness is short. 36 of the 60 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 8 reached an hour or more.

15+ min early81 flights24.0%
Within 15 min197 flights58.3%
15–29 min late36 flights10.7%
30–59 min late16 flights4.7%
1–2 hours late4 flights1.2%
2+ hours late4 flights1.2%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 338 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 34 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 11 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 37 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 SAN.

The worst days

Worst days for DL 2121

The latest arrival of the period was on 26 January 2026, 3 hours 38 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.

The latest arrivals of DL 2121 in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
26 January 2026	3 hours 38 minutes	Carrier
23 January 2026	2 hours 34 minutes	Extreme weather
16 April 2026	2 hours 23 minutes	Carrier
5 September 2025	2 hours 9 minutes	Carrier
10 June 2026	1 hour 53 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why DL 2121 runs late

National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 2,351 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

National Airspace System
46%
Carrier
43%
Extreme weather
8%
Late-arriving aircraft
3%

The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,008 of the 2,351 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,351 delay minutes reported on DL 2121.

Cancellations are rare at 0.88%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.4% 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 1,532 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.

The same number turns up on three other city pairs in the data, including SAN to MSP (117), MCI to ATL (24) and ATL to MCI (24), but none flew often enough under DL 2121 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to MSP to SAN only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 341 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 2121

For a booking, read DL 2121 as 82.2% on time with 0.88% cancelled over 341 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures