Flight number record
DL 2617
Delta Air Lines · Houston to Minneapolis
- Route
- IAH → MSP
- Departs
- 17:40
- Flights
- 338
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2617, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2617 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 338 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 2617 runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 337 completed flights
Avg delay
124 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.30%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
14.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 338 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 2617 flies
DL 2617 flies IAH to MSP without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:40, used on 52 of 338 flights, with 17:48 (46 flights) and 16:46 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 17:4052 flights15.4%
- Departs 17:4846 flights13.6%
- Departs 16:4636 flights10.7%
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 17:40 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 2617 runs 5 points better at 73.0%. 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 2617 next to IAH to MSP
Every carrier on IAH to MSP combined arrived on time 79.2% of the time across 1,939 flights, so DL 2617 is 6 points behind it. Delta flew 1,278 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2617thin sample | 338 | 73.0% | 124 min | 0.30% | C+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on IAH–MSP | 1,278 | 79.1% | 100 min | 1.10% | B |
| All carriers on IAH–MSP | 1,939 | 79.2% | 85 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2617 quarter by quarter
DL 2617 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 81.2% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 64.6%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 68 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 flights80.0%
- Oct–Dec 202579 flights64.6%
- Jan–Mar 202681 flights81.2%
- Apr–Jun 202686 flights73.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights69.4%
Scale runs 55% to 85%.
By weekday, DL 2617 did best on Saturday at 79.5% on time and worst on Wednesday at 66.0%. Each day rests on about 48 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2617 runs when it is late
DL 2617 often beats the schedule: 133 of 337 completed flights, 39%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When DL 2617 is late it tends to be very late: 48 of its 91 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 23 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early133 flights39.5%
- Within 15 min113 flights33.5%
- 15–29 min late17 flights5.0%
- 30–59 min late26 flights7.7%
- 1–2 hours late25 flights7.4%
- 2+ hours late23 flights6.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 337 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
16 of 100 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 7 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2617
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 March 2026, 17 hours 57 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 7 March 2026 | 17 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 June 2026 | 17 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 November 2025 | 16 hours 32 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 April 2026 | 14 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 December 2025 | 5 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 2617 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 43%Carrier
- 4%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 to one. The split is drawn from 11,286 delay minutes reported on DL 2617.
Cancellations are rare at 0.30%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
14.2% 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 1,034 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.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including MSP to IAH (24), but none flew often enough under DL 2617 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to IAH to MSP only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 338 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 2617
For a booking, DL 2617 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 14.2% of its completed flights arrived an hour or more late, which a short layover will not absorb. If the onward flight is on a separate ticket, the risk sits with you.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to MSP, every carrier and departure
- MSP to IAH, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1050 on the same route88.3%
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.