Flight number record
DL 2642
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Philadelphia
- Route
- ATL → PHL
- Departs
- 22:55
- Flights
- 361
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2642, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2642 lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 361 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 351 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.77%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
7.1%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 361 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 2642 flies
DL 2642 flies ATL to PHL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 22:55, used on 157 of 361 flights, with 22:30 (38 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 22:55157 flights43.5%
- Departs 22:3038 flights10.5%
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 22:55 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 2642 runs 6 points better at 76.9%. 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 2642 next to ATL to PHL
Every carrier on ATL to PHL combined arrived on time 74.9% of the time across 5,713 flights, so DL 2642 is 2 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,028 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2642thin sample | 361 | 76.9% | 54 min | 2.77% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–PHL | 3,028 | 76.1% | 52 min | 2.48% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–PHL | 5,713 | 74.9% | 72 min | 2.84% | C |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 2642 quarter by quarter
DL 2642 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 82.8% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 71.9%, a swing of 11 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 202591 flights71.9%
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights82.8%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights72.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights80.9%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2642 ranged from 72.0% on Sunday to 82.4% on Saturday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Delay causes
Why DL 2642 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 4,342 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.
- 45%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 4,342 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 4,342 delay minutes reported on DL 2642.
Cancellations run at 2.77%, 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
7.1% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 666 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
Every one of the 361 flights under DL 2642 in the data flew ATL to PHL. 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. 361 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 2642
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2642: 2.77% of its 361 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs roughly 55 minutes, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to PHL, every carrier and departure
- PHL to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2270 on the same route86.2%
- Delta Air Lines 1169 on the same route71.3%
- Delta Air Lines 2065 on the same route63.4%
- Frontier Airlines 3210 on the same route75.6%
- Frontier Airlines 2298 on the same route64.6%
- Delta Air Lines 1329 on the same route60.4%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.