Flight number record
DL 2727
Delta Air Lines · Des Moines to Atlanta
- Route
- DSM → ATL
- Departs
- 05:35
- Flights
- 349
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2727, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2727 earns an A−. Nearly every flight arrives inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 17 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.1 hours. That rests on 349 flights, with a median arrival 18 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2727's record is 17 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 167 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
94.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 336 completed flights
Avg delay
129 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.15%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 349 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 18 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.
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Schedule
When DL 2727 flies
DL 2727 flies DSM to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 05:35, used on 125 of 349 flights, with 05:44 (35 flights) and 05:27 (35 flights) next.
- Departs 05:35125 flights35.8%
- Departs 05:4435 flights10.0%
- Departs 05:2735 flights10.0%
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 05:35 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 2727 runs 5 points better at 94.0%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
DL 2727 next to DSM to ATL
Every carrier on DSM to ATL combined arrived on time 88.9% of the time across 1,254 flights, so DL 2727 is 5 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 13 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2727thin sample | 349 | 94.0% | 129 min | 3.15% | A− |
| All Delta Air Lines on DSM–ATL | 1,254 | 88.9% | 105 min | 2.39% | A |
| All carriers on DSM–ATL | 1,254 | 88.9% | 105 min | 2.39% | A |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2727 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 2727 held fairly steady: 100.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 93.3% in Oct–Dec 2025, 91.7% in Jan–Mar 2026, 95.5% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 93.2% in Jul–Sep 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 202530 flights100.0%
- Oct–Dec 202580 flights93.3%
- Jan–Mar 202686 flights91.7%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights95.5%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights93.2%
Scale runs 85% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2727 ranged from 88.9% on Saturday to 98.0% on Tuesday. With about 50 flights behind each day, a spread of 9 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2727 runs when it is late
DL 2727 often beats the schedule: 207 of 336 completed flights, 62%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When DL 2727 is late it tends to be very late: 12 of its 20 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 6 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early207 flights61.6%
- Within 15 min109 flights32.4%
- 15–29 min late4 flights1.2%
- 30–59 min late4 flights1.2%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.8%
- 2+ hours late6 flights1.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 336 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Only 17 of 336 completed flights left 15 minutes late or more, too few to say how often the time is made up.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2727
The latest arrival of the period was on 15 July 2026, 13 hours 9 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 15 July 2026 | 13 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 March 2026 | 4 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 November 2025 | 3 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 December 2025 | 3 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 August 2026 | 3 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 2727 runs late
Carrier accounts for 74% of the 2,579 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 74%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 7%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 74%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,914 of the 2,579 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,579 delay minutes reported on DL 2727.
Cancellations run at 3.15%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 743 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 DFW to SLC (16), but none flew often enough under DL 2727 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to DSM to ATL only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 349 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 2727
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2727: 3.15% of its 349 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 2.1 hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- DSM to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to DSM, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1704 on the same route88.9%
- Delta Air Lines 2086 on the same route84.9%
- 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
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.