Flight number record

DL 2438

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Sarasota

Route: ATL → SRQ
Departs: 12:20
Flights: 287
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2438, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2438 earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 50 minutes. That rests on 287 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 2438's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 96 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

87.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 282 completed flights

Avg delay

50 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.74%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

2.8%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 287 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 2438 flies

DL 2438 flies ATL to SRQ without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:20, used on 40 of 287 flights, with 12:43 (35 flights) and 12:50 (34 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 12:2040 flights13.9%
Departs 12:4335 flights12.2%
Departs 12:5034 flights11.8%

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 12:20 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and DL 2438 runs 8 points better at 87.2%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

DL 2438 next to ATL to SRQ

Every carrier on ATL to SRQ combined arrived on time 81.6% of the time across 2,285 flights, so DL 2438 is 6 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 6 points.

DL 2438 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2438thin sample	287	87.2%	50 min	1.74%	A
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–SRQ	2,285	81.6%	57 min	1.66%	B
All carriers on ATL–SRQ	2,285	81.6%	57 min	1.66%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2438 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter DL 2438 held fairly steady: 87.9% in Jul–Sep 2025, 88.6% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 87.8% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of about a point is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202592 flights87.9%
Oct–Dec 202580 flights88.6%
Jan–Mar 202624 flights—
Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.8%

Scale runs 80% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2438 did best on Wednesday at 95.1% on time and worst on Sunday at 78.0%. Each day rests on about 41 flights, so a gap of 17 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 2438 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 68% of the 1,784 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
68%
National Airspace System
17%
Late-arriving aircraft
14%
Extreme weather
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 68%, 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 1,207 of the 1,784 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,784 delay minutes reported on DL 2438.

Cancellations sit at 1.74% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.8% 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.

DL 2438 is not only a ATL to SRQ flight. It also flew SRQ to ATL (287 flights, 87.2% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 287 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.

Other routes flown as DL 2438
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SRQ to ATLthin sample	287	87.2%	98 min	1.74%	A

What to do with this

Booking DL 2438

For a booking, read DL 2438 as 87.2% on time with 1.74% cancelled over 287 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