Flight number record
DL 2438
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Sarasota
- Route
- ATL → SRQ
- Departs
- 12:40
- Flights
- 287
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2438, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2438 earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 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 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 92 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 282 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.74%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.3%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 287 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Schedule
When DL 2438 flies
DL 2438 flies ATL to SRQ without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:40, used on 39 of 287 flights, with 12:43 (35 flights) and 12:50 (34 flights) next.
- Departs 12:4039 flights13.6%
- Departs 12:4335 flights12.2%
- Departs 12:5034 flights11.8%
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 12:40 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 2438 runs 8 points better at 86.5%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
DL 2438 next to ATL to SRQ
Every carrier on ATL to SRQ combined arrived on time 80.8% of the time across 2,289 flights, so DL 2438 is 6 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2438thin sample | 287 | 86.5% | 52 min | 1.74% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–SRQ | 2,289 | 80.8% | 57 min | 1.66% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–SRQ | 2,289 | 80.8% | 57 min | 1.66% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2438 quarter by quarter
DL 2438 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 80.3%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 72 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 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202580 flights88.6%
- Jan–Mar 202624 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.8%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights80.3%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2438 did best on Monday at 92.5% on time and worst on Sunday at 77.5%. Each day rests on about 41 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2438 runs when it is late
The 38 late arrivals split 16 under half an hour, 10 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 12 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early43 flights15.2%
- Within 15 min201 flights71.3%
- 15–29 min late16 flights5.7%
- 30–59 min late10 flights3.5%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights3.9%
- 2+ hours late1 flights0.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 282 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 28 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 3 made it up before arrival. 13 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2438
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 December 2025, 2 hours 32 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across December, April, August and November, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 December 2025 | 2 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 April 2026 | 1 hour 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 April 2026 | 1 hour 53 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 August 2026 | 1 hour 53 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 November 2025 | 1 hour 45 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 2438 runs late
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 1,966 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 39%National Airspace System
- 10%Late-arriving aircraft
39% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 772 minutes out of 1,966, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 1,966 delay minutes reported on DL 2438.
Cancellations sit at 1.74% against a national 1.89%, 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 4.3% 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.
DL 2438 is not only a ATL to SRQ flight. It also flew SRQ to ATL (274 flights, 84.3% 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SRQ to ATLthin sample | 274 | 84.3% | 100 min | 1.82% | B |
What to do with this
Booking DL 2438
For a booking, read DL 2438 as 86.5% on time with 1.74% cancelled over 287 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to SRQ, every carrier and departure
- SRQ to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 3104 on the same route85.0%
- Delta Air Lines 2997 on the same route78.4%
- Delta Air Lines 3115 on the same route78.0%
- Delta Air Lines 1057 on the same route70.4%
- Delta Air Lines 3196 on the same route94.2%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.