Flight number record

DL 2256

Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Kansas City

Route: SEA → MCI
Departs: 17:50
Flights: 364
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2256, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2256 lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four 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 364 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

On time

76.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 354 completed flights

Avg delay

68 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.65%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

8.8%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Schedule

When DL 2256 flies

DL 2256 flies SEA to MCI without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:50, used on 151 of 364 flights, with 17:30 (55 flights) and 17:40 (41 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 17:50151 flights41.5%
Departs 17:3055 flights15.1%
Departs 17:4041 flights11.3%

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 17:50 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 2256 runs 8 points better at 76.6%. 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 2256 next to SEA to MCI

Every carrier on SEA to MCI combined arrived on time 77.7% of the time across 1,131 flights, so DL 2256 is about level with it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 5 points.

DL 2256 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2256thin sample	364	76.6%	68 min	1.65%	B
All Delta Air Lines on SEA–MCIthin sample	364	76.6%	68 min	1.65%	B
All carriers on SEA–MCI	1,131	77.7%	55 min	0.88%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2256 quarter by quarter

DL 2256 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 83.5% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 65.9%, a swing of 18 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 flights65.9%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights76.4%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights83.5%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights80.9%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2256 ranged from 71.4% on Sunday to 82.4% on Saturday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Delay causes

Why DL 2256 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 58% of the 5,655 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
58%
Late-arriving aircraft
26%
National Airspace System
12%
Extreme weather
4%

The largest share of delay minutes, 58%, 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 3,283 of the 5,655 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,655 delay minutes reported on DL 2256.

Cancellations sit at 1.65% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.10%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

8.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 1,490 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

Every one of the 364 flights under DL 2256 in the data flew SEA to MCI. 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. 364 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 2256

For a booking, read DL 2256 as 76.6% on time with 1.65% cancelled over 364 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures