Flight number record

DL 2186

Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Fairbanks

Route: SEA → FAI
Departs: 21:45
Flights: 361
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2186, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2186 lands a B−, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 361 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

On time

80.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights

Avg delay

76 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.05%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

4.3%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 361 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Schedule

When DL 2186 flies

DL 2186 flies SEA to FAI without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:45, used on 83 of 361 flights, with 21:25 (77 flights) and 21:59 (41 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 21:4583 flights23.0%
Departs 21:2577 flights21.3%
Departs 21:5941 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 21:45 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 2186 runs 10 points better at 80.0%. 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 2186 next to SEA to FAI

Every carrier on SEA to FAI combined arrived on time 77.8% of the time across 2,321 flights, so DL 2186 is 2 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 2 points.

DL 2186 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2186thin sample	361	80.0%	76 min	3.05%	B−
All Delta Air Lines on SEA–FAI	482	79.6%	77 min	2.28%	B
All carriers on SEA–FAI	2,321	77.8%	50 min	1.03%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2186 quarter by quarter

DL 2186 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 84.6% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 73.0%, a swing of 12 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 flights84.6%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights73.0%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights81.9%
Apr–Jun 202687 flights80.5%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2186 did best on Tuesday at 84.3% on time and worst on Thursday at 70.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 2186 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 75% of the 5,299 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
75%
National Airspace System
16%
Late-arriving aircraft
9%

The largest share of delay minutes, 75%, 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 3,961 of the 5,299 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,299 delay minutes reported on DL 2186.

Cancellations run at 3.05%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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 4.3% 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 1,533 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 361 flights under DL 2186 in the data flew SEA to FAI. 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. 361 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 2186

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2186: 3.05% of its 361 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs a little over 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