Flight number record
DL 2161
Delta Air Lines · Grand Rapids to Atlanta
- Route
- GRR → ATL
- Departs
- 08:00
- Flights
- 342
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2161, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2161 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 close to two hours. That rests on 342 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2161's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 80 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 340 completed flights
Avg delay
103 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.58%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 342 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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 2161 flies
DL 2161 flies GRR to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:00, used on 177 of 342 flights, with 07:53 (43 flights) next.
- Departs 08:00177 flights51.8%
- Departs 07:5343 flights12.6%
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 08:00 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 2161 runs level with that at 85.3%. 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 2161 next to GRR to ATL
Every carrier on GRR to ATL combined arrived on time 86.7% of the time across 1,417 flights, so DL 2161 is about level with it. Delta flew 1,384 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 87.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2161thin sample | 342 | 85.3% | 103 min | 0.58% | A+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on GRR–ATL | 1,384 | 87.1% | 81 min | 1.23% | A |
| All carriers on GRR–ATL | 1,417 | 86.7% | 84 min | 1.27% | A |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2161 quarter by quarter
DL 2161 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 93.4% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 76.2%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 86 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 202524 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202580 flights85.0%
- Jan–Mar 202685 flights76.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights85.7%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights93.4%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2161 did best on Friday at 91.8% on time and worst on Sunday at 79.2%. Each day rests on about 49 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2161 runs when it is late
DL 2161 often beats the schedule: 145 of 340 completed flights, 43%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 50 late arrivals split 14 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 21 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early145 flights42.6%
- Within 15 min145 flights42.6%
- 15–29 min late14 flights4.1%
- 30–59 min late15 flights4.4%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights2.1%
- 2+ hours late14 flights4.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 340 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
8 of 42 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. 16 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2161
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 July 2026, 9 hours 9 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 24 July 2026 | 9 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 January 2026 | 9 hours 2 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 October 2025 | 6 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 April 2026 | 5 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 January 2026 | 5 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2161 runs late
Carrier accounts for 76% of the 5,138 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 76%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 7%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 76%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,908 of the 5,138 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,138 delay minutes reported on DL 2161.
Cancellations are rare at 0.58%, 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
6.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 640 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 342 flights under DL 2161 in the data flew GRR 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. 342 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 2161
For a booking, DL 2161 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 85.3% on time and 0.58% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- GRR to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to GRR, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2453 on the same route90.3%
- Delta Air Lines 2058 on the same route85.0%
- Delta Air Lines 2547 on the same route85.6%
- 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
- 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.