Flight number record
DL 2535
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to West Palm Beach
- Route
- DTW → PBI
- Departs
- 08:40
- Flights
- 323
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2535, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2535 lands a B+, 6 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 323 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2535's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 63 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 322 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.31%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
5.9%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 323 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 2535 flies
DL 2535 flies DTW to PBI without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:40, used on 66 of 323 flights, with 08:35 (56 flights) and 08:45 (36 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 08:4066 flights20.4%
- Departs 08:3556 flights17.3%
- Departs 08:4536 flights11.1%
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 08:40 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and DL 2535 runs level with that at 83.9%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
Against the route
DL 2535 next to DTW to PBI
Every carrier on DTW to PBI combined arrived on time 81.2% of the time across 475 flights, so DL 2535 is 3 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2535thin sample | 323 | 83.9% | 63 min | 0.31% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on DTW–PBI | 475 | 81.2% | 58 min | 1.26% | B |
| All carriers on DTW–PBI | 475 | 81.2% | 58 min | 1.26% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 2535 quarter by quarter
DL 2535 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 94.6% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 73.3%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 81 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 flights94.6%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights79.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights73.3%
- Apr–Jun 202649 flights91.7%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2535 did best on Tuesday at 89.4% on time and worst on Monday at 76.1%. Each day rests on about 46 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 2535 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 3,266 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.
- 52%Carrier
- 44%National Airspace System
- 3%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, 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 1,693 of the 3,266 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,266 delay minutes reported on DL 2535.
Cancellations are rare at 0.31%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.9% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,086 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.
DL 2535 is not only a DTW to PBI flight. It also flew PBI to DTW (323 flights, 79.1% 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. 323 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PBI to DTWthin sample | 323 | 79.1% | 76 min | 0.31% | B+ |
What to do with this
Booking DL 2535
For a booking, read DL 2535 as 83.9% on time with 0.31% cancelled over 323 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.