Flight number record

DL 2596

Delta Air Lines · Newark to Detroit

Route: EWR → DTW
Departs: 06:00
Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2596, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2596 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 14 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.4 hours. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 2596's record is 14 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 142 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

91.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 355 completed flights

Avg delay

147 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.74%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

5.1%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 2596 flies

DL 2596 is scheduled to leave Newark (EWR) at 06:00 local time and reach Detroit (DTW) at 07:55. That slot held for 350 of the 365 scheduled departures in the data, so the figures below describe one steady operation rather than a number that moved around the clock.

Departs 06:00350 flights95.9%

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 06:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 2596 runs 3 points better at 91.8%. 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 2596 next to EWR to DTW

Every carrier on EWR to DTW combined arrived on time 79.2% of the time across 3,782 flights, so DL 2596 is 13 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,621 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 78.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 10 points.

DL 2596 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2596	365	91.8%	147 min	2.74%	A
All Delta Air Lines on EWR–DTW	1,621	78.6%	104 min	3.52%	B−
All carriers on EWR–DTW	3,782	79.2%	86 min	4.84%	B−
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2596 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter DL 2596 held fairly steady: 91.2% in Jul–Sep 2025, 92.1% in Oct–Dec 2025, 90.7% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 93.3% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 3 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202592 flights91.2%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights92.1%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights90.7%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights93.3%

Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2596 ranged from 86.5% on Saturday to 98.0% on Wednesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 12 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Delay causes

Why DL 2596 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 62% of the 4,258 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
62%
Late-arriving aircraft
25%
National Airspace System
8%
Extreme weather
5%

The largest share of delay minutes, 62%, 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 2,630 of the 4,258 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,258 delay minutes reported on DL 2596.

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

5.1% 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 2.4 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.

Every one of the 365 flights under DL 2596 in the data flew EWR to DTW. 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. 365 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 2596

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2596: 2.74% of its 365 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 2.4 hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

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