Flight number record

DL 2229

Delta Air Lines · Sacramento to Minneapolis

Route: SMF → MSP
Departs: 06:15
Flights: 363
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2229, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2229 earns an A+. Nearly every flight arrives inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 16 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 2229's record is 16 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 155 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

93.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights

Avg delay

93 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.83%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

2.5%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 363 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 2229 flies

DL 2229 is scheduled to leave Sacramento (SMF) at 06:15 local time and reach Minneapolis (MSP) at 11:40. That slot held for 294 of the 363 scheduled departures in the data, so the figures below describe one steady operation rather than a number that moved around the clock.

Departs 06:15294 flights81.0%
Departs 06:0066 flights18.2%

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 06:15 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 2229 runs 4 points better at 93.1%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

DL 2229 next to SMF to MSP

Every carrier on SMF to MSP combined arrived on time 92.7% of the time across 590 flights, so DL 2229 is about level with it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 12 points.

DL 2229 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2229thin sample	363	93.1%	93 min	0.83%	A+
All Delta Air Lines on SMF–MSP	590	92.7%	79 min	0.68%	A+
All carriers on SMF–MSP	590	92.7%	79 min	0.68%	A+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2229 quarter by quarter

DL 2229 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 86.2%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 91 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 flights96.7%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights93.3%
Jan–Mar 202689 flights86.2%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights95.6%

Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2229 ranged from 86.3% on Saturday to 98.1% on Wednesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 12 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Delay causes

Why DL 2229 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 80% of the 2,314 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
80%
Late-arriving aircraft
11%
National Airspace System
8%

The largest share of delay minutes, 80%, 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 1,854 of the 2,314 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,314 delay minutes reported on DL 2229.

Cancellations are rare at 0.83%, below the national 1.81% 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 2.5% 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 1,517 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 363 flights under DL 2229 in the data flew SMF to MSP. 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. 363 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 2229

For a booking, DL 2229 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 93.1% on time and 0.83% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures