Flight number record

DL 2257

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Birmingham

Route: ATL → BHM
Departs: 19:53
Flights: 270
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2257, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2257 lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six 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 270 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 2257's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 50 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 264 completed flights

Avg delay

74 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.22%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

7.2%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 270 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 2257 flies

DL 2257 flies ATL to BHM without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 19:53, used on 39 of 270 flights, with 20:25 (38 flights) and 20:34 (35 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 19:5339 flights14.4%
Departs 20:2538 flights14.1%
Departs 20:3435 flights13.0%

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 19:53 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 2257 runs 14 points better at 82.6%. 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 2257 next to ATL to BHM

Every carrier on ATL to BHM combined arrived on time 84.0% of the time across 3,306 flights, so DL 2257 is about level with it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, close to this flight's figure.

DL 2257 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2257thin sample	270	82.6%	74 min	2.22%	B
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–BHM	3,306	84.0%	64 min	1.72%	B
All carriers on ATL–BHM	3,306	84.0%	64 min	1.72%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2257 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter DL 2257 held fairly steady: 78.6% in Jul–Sep 2025, 88.2% in Oct–Dec 2025, 80.0% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 83.7% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 10 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202584 flights78.6%
Oct–Dec 202579 flights88.2%
Jan–Mar 202657 flights80.0%
Apr–Jun 202650 flights83.7%

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2257 did best on Thursday at 89.8% on time and worst on Friday at 68.8%. Each day rests on about 39 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 2257 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 58% of the 3,405 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
35%
National Airspace System
7%
Extreme weather
0%

35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 3,405 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 3,405 delay minutes reported on DL 2257.

Cancellations sit at 2.22% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

7.2% 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.

Every one of the 270 flights under DL 2257 in the data flew ATL to BHM. 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. 270 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 2257

For a booking, read DL 2257 as 82.6% on time with 2.22% cancelled over 270 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