Flight number record
DL 2701
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Little Rock
- Route
- ATL → LIT
- Departs
- 20:10
- Flights
- 294
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2701, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2701 lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 294 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 289 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.70%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
8.0%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 294 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 2701 flies
DL 2701 flies ATL to LIT without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 20:10, used on 83 of 294 flights, with 21:00 (36 flights) and 20:15 (31 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 20:1083 flights28.2%
- Departs 21:0036 flights12.2%
- Departs 20:1531 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 20:10 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 2701 runs 10 points better at 80.3%. 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 2701 next to ATL to LIT
Every carrier on ATL to LIT combined arrived on time 85.4% of the time across 2,288 flights, so DL 2701 is 5 points behind it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2701thin sample | 294 | 80.3% | 65 min | 1.70% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–LIT | 2,288 | 85.4% | 67 min | 1.84% | A |
| All carriers on ATL–LIT | 2,288 | 85.4% | 67 min | 1.84% | A |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 2701 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 2701 held fairly steady: 84.6% in Jul–Sep 2025, 80.7% in Oct–Dec 2025, 78.9% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 76.9% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202578 flights84.6%
- Oct–Dec 202557 flights80.7%
- Jan–Mar 202681 flights78.9%
- Apr–Jun 202678 flights76.9%
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2701 did best on Tuesday at 91.9% on time and worst on Monday at 72.9%. Each day rests on about 42 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 2701 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 50% of the 3,690 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.
- 50%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, 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 1,833 of the 3,690 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,690 delay minutes reported on DL 2701.
Cancellations sit at 1.70% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.0% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
Every one of the 294 flights under DL 2701 in the data flew ATL to LIT. 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. 294 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 2701
For a booking, DL 2701 is one of the weaker ways to fly ATL to LIT: 5 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to LIT, every carrier and departure
- LIT to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 3033 on the same route92.6%
- Delta Air Lines 3040 on the same route90.9%
- Delta Air Lines 2083 on the same route84.1%
- Delta Air Lines 3025 on the same route80.7%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.