Flight number record
DL 2609
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Newark
- Route
- DTW → EWR
- Departs
- 21:30
- Flights
- 360
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2609, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2609 sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 360 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 2609 runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 67 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.61%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
15.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 360 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 2609 flies
DL 2609 flies DTW to EWR without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:30, used on 101 of 360 flights, with 21:40 (98 flights) and 21:20 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 21:30101 flights28.1%
- Departs 21:4098 flights27.2%
- Departs 21:2036 flights10.0%
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 21:30 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 2609 runs level with that at 70.6%. 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 2609 next to DTW to EWR
Every carrier on DTW to EWR combined arrived on time 77.4% of the time across 3,642 flights, so DL 2609 is 7 points behind it. Delta flew 1,612 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 11 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2609thin sample | 360 | 70.6% | 98 min | 3.61% | C− |
| All Delta Air Lines on DTW–EWR | 1,612 | 75.4% | 78 min | 3.91% | B− |
| All carriers on DTW–EWR | 3,642 | 77.4% | 76 min | 5.55% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2609 quarter by quarter
DL 2609 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 63.5%, 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 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 202588 flights63.5%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights69.4%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights78.7%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights63.8%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 2609 did best on Tuesday at 82.4% on time and worst on Thursday at 63.8%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2609 runs when it is late
DL 2609 often beats the schedule: 116 of 347 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When DL 2609 is late it tends to be very late: 52 of its 102 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 23 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early116 flights33.4%
- Within 15 min129 flights37.2%
- 15–29 min late25 flights7.2%
- 30–59 min late25 flights7.2%
- 1–2 hours late29 flights8.4%
- 2+ hours late23 flights6.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 347 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
19 of 107 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 14 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2609
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 December 2025, 11 hours 34 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 26 December 2025 | 11 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 May 2026 | 11 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 September 2025 | 10 hours 33 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 9 January 2026 | 8 hours 13 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 June 2026 | 4 hours 48 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 2609 runs late
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 9,992 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 34%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
34% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 3,387 minutes out of 9,992, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 9,992 delay minutes reported on DL 2609.
Cancellations run at 3.61%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
15.0% 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.
Every one of the 360 flights under DL 2609 in the data flew DTW to EWR. 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. 360 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 2609
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2609: 3.61% of its 360 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs an hour and a half, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to EWR, every carrier and departure
- EWR to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2577 on the same route81.4%
- Delta Air Lines 2566 on the same route90.1%
- Delta Air Lines 2573 on the same route72.2%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) 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.