Flight number record

DL 2661

Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to New York

Route: MSP → JFK
Departs: 12:59
Flights: 264
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2661, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2661 lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 264 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 2661's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 59 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 254 completed flights

Avg delay

99 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.65%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

9.4%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 264 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 2661 flies

DL 2661 flies MSP to JFK without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:59, used on 84 of 264 flights, with 12:45 (83 flights) and 12:56 (28 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 12:5984 flights31.8%
Departs 12:4583 flights31.4%
Departs 12:5628 flights10.6%

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 12:59 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and DL 2661 runs 5 points better at 83.5%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

DL 2661 next to MSP to JFK

Every carrier on MSP to JFK combined arrived on time 82.2% of the time across 750 flights, so DL 2661 is about level with it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 2 points.

DL 2661 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2661thin sample	264	83.5%	99 min	2.65%	B
All Delta Air Lines on MSP–JFK	750	82.2%	87 min	1.47%	B
All carriers on MSP–JFK	750	82.2%	87 min	1.47%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2661 quarter by quarter

DL 2661 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 91.0% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 75.3%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 88 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 flights84.1%
Oct–Dec 202590 flights75.3%
Jan–Mar 20263 flights—
Apr–Jun 202679 flights91.0%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2661 did best on Friday at 91.4% on time and worst on Thursday at 75.0%. Each day rests on about 38 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 2661 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 53% of the 4,169 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.

National Airspace System
53%
Carrier
39%
Late-arriving aircraft
5%
Extreme weather
3%

The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,623 of the 4,169 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,169 delay minutes reported on DL 2661.

Cancellations run at 2.65%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.4% 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.

The 1,029 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 264 flights under DL 2661 in the data flew MSP to JFK. 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. 264 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 2661

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2661: 2.65% of its 264 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