Flight number record

DL 2609

Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Newark

Route: DTW → EWR
Departs: 21:30
Flights: 360
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 360 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 2609 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 80 extra late arrivals.

On time

69.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 349 completed flights

Avg delay

97 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.06%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

16.3%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 360 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.3% 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 2609 flies

DL 2609 flies DTW to EWR without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:30, used on 146 of 360 flights, with 21:40 (36 flights) and 21:20 (36 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 21:30146 flights40.6%
Departs 21:4036 flights10.0%
Departs 21:2036 flights10.0%

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 21:30 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 2609 runs level with that at 69.6%. 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 2609 next to DTW to EWR

Every carrier on DTW to EWR combined arrived on time 75.8% of the time across 3,764 flights, so DL 2609 is 6 points behind it. Delta flew 1,621 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.0% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 12 points.

DL 2609 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2609thin sample	360	69.6%	97 min	3.06%	C−
All Delta Air Lines on DTW–EWR	1,621	74.0%	81 min	3.45%	C−
All carriers on DTW–EWR	3,764	75.8%	78 min	5.05%	B−
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2609 quarter by quarter

DL 2609 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 78.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 63.5%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 90 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 flights66.7%
Oct–Dec 202588 flights63.5%
Jan–Mar 202689 flights69.4%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights78.7%

Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2609 did best on Tuesday at 80.8% on time and worst on Wednesday at 60.4%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 2609 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 10,000 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
45%
National Airspace System
34%
Late-arriving aircraft
20%
Extreme weather
1%

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 3,495 minutes out of 10,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 10,274 delay minutes reported on DL 2609.

Cancellations run at 3.06%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 16.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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: 3.06% 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.

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