Flight number record
DL 2838
Delta Air Lines · Cleveland to Atlanta
- Route
- CLE → ATL
- Departs
- 07:05
- Flights
- 311
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2838, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2838 earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 15 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 311 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2838's record is 15 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 145 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
91.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 304 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.61%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 311 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 2838 flies
DL 2838 flies CLE to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:05, used on 216 of 311 flights.
- Departs 07:05216 flights69.5%
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 07:05 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 2838 runs 3 points better at 91.8%. 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 2838 next to CLE to ATL
Every carrier on CLE to ATL combined arrived on time 84.6% of the time across 3,398 flights, so DL 2838 is 7 points ahead of it. Delta flew 2,680 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 88.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 11 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2838thin sample | 311 | 91.8% | 57 min | 1.61% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on CLE–ATL | 2,680 | 88.3% | 75 min | 1.94% | A |
| All carriers on CLE–ATL | 3,398 | 84.6% | 77 min | 2.03% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2838 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 2838 held fairly steady: 93.3% in Jul–Sep 2025, 90.8% in Oct–Dec 2025, 90.2% in Jan–Mar 2026, 91.4% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 94.8% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 5 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202580 flights90.8%
- Jan–Mar 202684 flights90.2%
- Apr–Jun 202658 flights91.4%
- Jul–Sep 202659 flights94.8%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2838 ranged from 86.0% on Monday to 93.3% on Thursday. With about 44 flights behind each day, a spread of 7 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2838 runs when it is late
DL 2838 often beats the schedule: 140 of 304 completed flights, 46%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 25 late arrivals split 9 under half an hour, 7 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 9 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early140 flights46.1%
- Within 15 min139 flights45.7%
- 15–29 min late9 flights3.0%
- 30–59 min late7 flights2.3%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights2.0%
- 2+ hours late3 flights1.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 304 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 23 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 9 still arrived on time. 11 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2838
The latest arrival of the period was on 21 November 2025, 3 hours 2 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 21 November 2025 | 3 hours 2 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 October 2025 | 2 hours 44 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 September 2025 | 2 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 January 2026 | 1 hour 40 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 28 April 2026 | 1 hour 21 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 2838 runs late
Carrier accounts for 56% of the 1,433 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Carrier
- 39%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 801 of the 1,433 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,433 delay minutes reported on DL 2838.
Cancellations sit at 1.61% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.64%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.0% 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 554 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.
Every one of the 311 flights under DL 2838 in the data flew CLE to ATL. 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. 311 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 2838
For a booking, read DL 2838 as 91.8% on time with 1.61% cancelled over 311 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to CLE, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 775 on the same route87.1%
- Delta Air Lines 2734 on the same route91.5%
- Delta Air Lines 2545 on the same route85.5%
- Frontier Airlines 2409 on the same route72.1%
- Delta Air Lines 1500 on the same route89.0%
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- 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
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.