Flight number record
DL 2856
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Atlanta
- Route
- DTW → ATL
- Departs
- 10:35
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2856, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2856 earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2856's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 92 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 364 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 2856 flies
DL 2856 flies DTW to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 10:35, used on 106 of 365 flights, with 10:31 (64 flights) and 10:30 (63 flights) next.
- Departs 10:35106 flights29.0%
- Departs 10:3164 flights17.5%
- Departs 10:3063 flights17.3%
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 10:35 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 2856 runs 3 points better at 86.5%. 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 2856 next to DTW to ATL
Every carrier on DTW to ATL combined arrived on time 78.9% of the time across 4,832 flights, so DL 2856 is 8 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,780 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.2% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2856 | 365 | 86.5% | 68 min | 0.27% | A+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on DTW–ATL | 3,780 | 81.2% | 68 min | 0.48% | B+ |
| All carriers on DTW–ATL | 4,832 | 78.9% | 75 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2856 quarter by quarter
DL 2856 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 78.7%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 73 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 202530 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights85.9%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights78.7%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights92.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights87.1%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2856 ranged from 80.8% on Tuesday to 92.3% on Thursday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 12 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2856 runs when it is late
DL 2856 often beats the schedule: 110 of 364 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 49 late arrivals split 18 under half an hour, 11 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early110 flights30.2%
- Within 15 min205 flights56.3%
- 15–29 min late18 flights4.9%
- 30–59 min late11 flights3.0%
- 1–2 hours late13 flights3.6%
- 2+ hours late7 flights1.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 364 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
18 of 61 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 30% of them. Only 6 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2856
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 March 2026, 5 hours 27 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across March, July and December, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 March 2026 | 5 hours 27 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 July 2026 | 4 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 July 2026 | 3 hours 44 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 December 2025 | 3 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 December 2025 | 2 hours 58 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 2856 runs late
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 3,317 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 3,317 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 to one. The split is drawn from 3,317 delay minutes reported on DL 2856.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, 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
5.5% 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 594 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 365 flights under DL 2856 in the data flew DTW 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. 365 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 2856
For a booking, DL 2856 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 86.5% on time and 0.27% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1611 on the same route87.2%
- Delta Air Lines 1467 on the same route76.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2375 on the same route91.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2053 on the same route72.4%
- Delta Air Lines 965 on the same route86.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2188 on the same route67.2%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.