Flight number record
DL 2549
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Washington
- Route
- ATL → IAD
- Departs
- 22:45
- Flights
- 329
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2549, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2549 sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 329 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 320 completed flights
Avg delay
100 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.74%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
8.8%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 329 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Schedule
When DL 2549 flies
DL 2549 flies ATL to IAD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 22:45, used on 48 of 329 flights, with 22:34 (34 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 22:4548 flights14.6%
- Departs 22:3434 flights10.3%
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 22:45 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 2549 runs 5 points better at 75.0%. 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 2549 next to ATL to IAD
Every carrier on ATL to IAD combined arrived on time 76.5% of the time across 3,979 flights, so DL 2549 is 2 points behind it. Delta flew 2,219 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 77.8% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 7 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2549thin sample | 329 | 75.0% | 100 min | 2.74% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–IAD | 2,219 | 77.8% | 78 min | 2.66% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–IAD | 3,979 | 76.5% | 81 min | 1.99% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 2549 quarter by quarter
DL 2549 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 83.5% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 70.6%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 82 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 202591 flights72.7%
- Oct–Dec 202558 flights71.4%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights70.6%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights83.5%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2549 did best on Saturday at 83.7% on time and worst on Sunday at 66.7%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 17 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 2549 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 61% of the 8,022 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.
- 61%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, 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 4,931 of the 8,022 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,022 delay minutes reported on DL 2549.
Cancellations run at 2.74%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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
8.8% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 534 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.
Every one of the 329 flights under DL 2549 in the data flew ATL to IAD. 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. 329 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 2549
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2549: 2.74% of its 329 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs close to two hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to IAD, every carrier and departure
- IAD to ATL, the return direction
- United Airlines 1831 on the same route77.2%
- United Airlines 632 on the same route86.3%
- United Airlines 2634 on the same route76.8%
- Delta Air Lines 1309 on the same route73.5%
- Frontier Airlines 1082 on the same route58.8%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.