Flight number record
DL 2603
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to New York
- Route
- DTW → LGA
- Departs
- 21:50
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2603, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2603 sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 2603 runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 337 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.89%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
10.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 363 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Schedule
When DL 2603 flies
DL 2603 flies DTW to LGA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:50, used on 114 of 363 flights, with 21:52 (67 flights) and 21:55 (60 flights) next.
- Departs 21:50114 flights31.4%
- Departs 21:5267 flights18.5%
- Departs 21:5560 flights16.5%
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 21:50 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 2603 runs 2 points better at 72.4%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Against the route
DL 2603 next to DTW to LGA
Every carrier on DTW to LGA combined arrived on time 74.7% of the time across 3,862 flights, so DL 2603 is 2 points behind it. Delta flew 1,981 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2603thin sample | 363 | 72.4% | 74 min | 6.89% | C− |
| All Delta Air Lines on DTW–LGA | 1,981 | 76.4% | 74 min | 4.04% | B− |
| All carriers on DTW–LGA | 3,862 | 74.7% | 76 min | 5.44% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2603 quarter by quarter
DL 2603 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 65.5%, a swing of 31 points on roughly 73 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 202590 flights71.8%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights69.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights72.1%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights65.5%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2603 did best on Friday at 83.3% on time and worst on Thursday at 61.2%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 22 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2603 runs when it is late
The 93 late arrivals split 27 under half an hour, 31 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 35 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early83 flights24.6%
- Within 15 min161 flights47.8%
- 15–29 min late27 flights8.0%
- 30–59 min late31 flights9.2%
- 1–2 hours late21 flights6.2%
- 2+ hours late14 flights4.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 337 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
21 of 103 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. 11 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2603
The latest arrival of the period was on 29 December 2025, 14 hours 40 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as national airspace system delay.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 29 December 2025 | 14 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 April 2026 | 9 hours 24 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 4 July 2026 | 3 hours 21 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 2 August 2026 | 2 hours 50 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 7 December 2025 | 2 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2603 runs late
Carrier accounts for 44% of the 6,914 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Carrier
- 39%National Airspace System
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,074 of the 6,914 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,914 delay minutes reported on DL 2603.
Cancellations run at 6.89%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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
10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 502 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.
Every one of the 363 flights under DL 2603 in the data flew DTW to LGA. 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. 363 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 2603
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2603: 6.89% of its 363 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs a little over an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to LGA, every carrier and departure
- LGA to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2589 on the same route85.3%
- Delta Air Lines 2602 on the same route74.9%
- Delta Air Lines 1487 on the same route87.9%
- Republic Airways 4477 on the same route85.3%
- Delta Air Lines 2604 on the same route58.7%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.