Flight number record
DL 2186
Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Fairbanks
- Route
- SEA → FAI
- Departs
- 21:45
- Flights
- 353
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2186, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2186 lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 rests on 353 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
78.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 343 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.83%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 353 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 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 353 flights, with 21:25 (77 flights) and 21:41 (53 flights) next.
- Departs 21:4583 flights23.5%
- Departs 21:2577 flights21.8%
- Departs 21:4153 flights15.0%
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 21:45 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 2186 runs 9 points better at 78.7%. 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 2186 next to SEA to FAI
Every carrier on SEA to FAI combined arrived on time 79.0% of the time across 2,254 flights, so DL 2186 is about level with it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2186thin sample | 353 | 78.7% | 69 min | 2.83% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on SEA–FAI | 474 | 77.1% | 69 min | 2.11% | B |
| All carriers on SEA–FAI | 2,254 | 79.0% | 49 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | 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 93.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 72.2%, a swing of 21 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 flights73.0%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights81.9%
- Apr–Jun 202687 flights80.5%
- Jul–Sep 202654 flights72.2%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2186 did best on Tuesday at 87.0% on time and worst on Thursday at 66.7%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2186 runs when it is late
DL 2186 often beats the schedule: 91 of 343 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 73 late arrivals split 33 under half an hour, 25 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 15 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early91 flights26.5%
- Within 15 min179 flights52.2%
- 15–29 min late33 flights9.6%
- 30–59 min late25 flights7.3%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights3.2%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 343 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
19 of 71 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 27% of them. In the other direction, 21 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 FAI.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2186
The latest arrival of the period was on 19 March 2026, 13 hours 22 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 19 March 2026 | 13 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 February 2026 | 11 hours 24 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 December 2025 | 10 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 January 2026 | 2 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 April 2026 | 1 hour 56 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2186 runs late
Carrier accounts for 69% of the 5,006 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 69%Carrier
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 69%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,474 of the 5,006 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,006 delay minutes reported on DL 2186.
Cancellations run at 2.83%, against 1.89% 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.4% 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 1,533 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 353 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. 353 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: 2.83% of its 353 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.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to FAI, every carrier and departure
- FAI to SEA, the return direction
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) 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
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.