Flight number record
DL 2501
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Memphis
- Route
- ATL → MEM
- Departs
- 23:00
- Flights
- 362
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2501, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2501 sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 362 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
74.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 351 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.04%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 362 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 2501 flies
DL 2501 flies ATL to MEM without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 23:00, used on 179 of 362 flights, with 22:45 (48 flights) next.
- Departs 23:00179 flights49.4%
- Departs 22:4548 flights13.3%
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 23:00 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 2501 runs 4 points better at 74.4%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
DL 2501 next to ATL to MEM
Every carrier on ATL to MEM combined arrived on time 81.1% of the time across 3,430 flights, so DL 2501 is 7 points behind it. Delta flew 3,345 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 7 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2501thin sample | 362 | 74.4% | 64 min | 3.04% | C− |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–MEM | 3,345 | 81.4% | 64 min | 1.76% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–MEM | 3,430 | 81.1% | 65 min | 1.78% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2501 quarter by quarter
DL 2501 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 67.1%, a swing of 20 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 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights77.3%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights67.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights74.7%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights73.8%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 2501 did best on Thursday at 86.0% on time and worst on Tuesday at 61.5%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 25 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2501 runs when it is late
The 90 late arrivals split 34 under half an hour, 26 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 30 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early85 flights24.2%
- Within 15 min176 flights50.1%
- 15–29 min late34 flights9.7%
- 30–59 min late26 flights7.4%
- 1–2 hours late19 flights5.4%
- 2+ hours late11 flights3.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 351 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
9 of 65 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. In the other direction, 34 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at MEM.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2501
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 May 2026, 9 hours 55 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 May 2026 | 9 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 April 2026 | 8 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 July 2026 | 2 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 23 September 2025 | 2 hours 22 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 28 April 2026 | 2 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2501 runs late
Carrier accounts for 50% of the 5,743 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,856 of the 5,743 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,743 delay minutes reported on DL 2501.
Cancellations run at 3.04%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
Every one of the 362 flights under DL 2501 in the data flew ATL to MEM. 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. 362 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 2501
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2501: 3.04% of its 362 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to MEM, every carrier and departure
- MEM to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1700 on the same route78.4%
- Delta Air Lines 2778 on the same route87.4%
- Delta Air Lines 2939 on the same route77.2%
- Delta Air Lines 1681 on the same route83.7%
- Delta Air Lines 2071 on the same route89.7%
- Delta Air Lines 2001 on the same route76.2%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Memphis International (MEM) 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
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.