Flight number record
DL 2786
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Columbus
- Route
- ATL → CMH
- Departs
- 17:25
- Flights
- 265
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2786, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2786 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 265 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
73.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 263 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.75%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 265 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 2786 flies
DL 2786 flies ATL to CMH without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:25, used on 74 of 265 flights, with 17:05 (34 flights) next.
- Departs 17:2574 flights27.9%
- Departs 17:0534 flights12.8%
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 17:25 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 2786 runs 5 points better at 73.4%. 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 2786 next to ATL to CMH
Every carrier on ATL to CMH combined arrived on time 80.0% of the time across 3,130 flights, so DL 2786 is 7 points behind it. Delta flew 2,679 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.6% 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 2786thin sample | 265 | 73.4% | 58 min | 0.75% | C+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–CMH | 2,679 | 81.6% | 56 min | 1.38% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–CMH | 3,130 | 80.0% | 56 min | 1.41% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2786 quarter by quarter
DL 2786 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 82.8% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 59.1%, a swing of 24 points on roughly 66 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 202529 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202545 flights59.1%
- Jan–Mar 202665 flights82.8%
- Apr–Jun 202664 flights81.2%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights64.5%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2786 did best on Wednesday at 88.6% on time and worst on Friday at 60.5%. Each day rests on about 38 flights, so a gap of 28 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2786 runs when it is late
The 70 late arrivals split 28 under half an hour, 20 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 22 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early49 flights18.6%
- Within 15 min144 flights54.8%
- 15–29 min late28 flights10.6%
- 30–59 min late20 flights7.6%
- 1–2 hours late13 flights4.9%
- 2+ hours late9 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 263 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 61 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 3 made it up before arrival. 12 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2786
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 August 2026, 3 hours 25 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across August, March, July, September and December, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 11 August 2026 | 3 hours 25 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 6 March 2026 | 3 hours 20 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 21 July 2026 | 3 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 September 2025 | 2 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 2 hours 51 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why DL 2786 runs late
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 4,029 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,625 of the 4,029 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,029 delay minutes reported on DL 2786.
Cancellations are rare at 0.75%, 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
8.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including CMH to ATL (75), but none flew often enough under DL 2786 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ATL to CMH only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 265 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 2786
For a booking, DL 2786 is one of the weaker ways to fly ATL to CMH: 7 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 CMH, every carrier and departure
- CMH to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1522 on the same route90.8%
- Delta Air Lines 2200 on the same route86.6%
- Delta Air Lines 1459 on the same route78.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1479 on the same route89.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1501 on the same route73.7%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.