Flight number record
DL 2869
Delta Air Lines · Washington to Detroit
- Route
- DCA → DTW
- Departs
- 06:00
- Flights
- 357
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2869, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2869 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 16 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.5 hours. That rests on 357 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2869's record is 16 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 155 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
92.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights
Avg delay
151 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.80%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 357 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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 2869 flies
DL 2869 flies DCA to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:00, used on 190 of 357 flights, with 06:05 (87 flights) next.
- Departs 06:00190 flights53.2%
- Departs 06:0587 flights24.4%
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 06:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 2869 runs 4 points better at 92.8%. 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 2869 next to DCA to DTW
Every carrier on DCA to DTW combined arrived on time 75.3% of the time across 2,972 flights, so DL 2869 is 18 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,741 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 78.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 12 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2869thin sample | 357 | 92.8% | 151 min | 2.80% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on DCA–DTW | 1,741 | 78.3% | 84 min | 2.93% | B |
| All carriers on DCA–DTW | 2,972 | 75.3% | 82 min | 4.04% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2869 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 2869 held fairly steady: 90.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 91.3% in Oct–Dec 2025, 93.9% in Jan–Mar 2026, 96.6% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 89.3% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights93.9%
- Apr–Jun 202688 flights96.6%
- Jul–Sep 202657 flights89.3%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2869 ranged from 88.2% on Friday to 98.0% on Tuesday. With about 51 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2869 runs when it is late
DL 2869 often beats the schedule: 156 of 347 completed flights, 45%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When DL 2869 is late it tends to be very late: 16 of its 25 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 7 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early156 flights45.0%
- Within 15 min166 flights47.8%
- 15–29 min late5 flights1.4%
- 30–59 min late4 flights1.2%
- 1–2 hours late9 flights2.6%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 347 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 24 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 2 made it up before arrival. Only 3 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2869
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 September 2025, 11 hours 29 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 11 September 2025 | 11 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 November 2025 | 9 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 March 2026 | 7 hours 53 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 August 2026 | 6 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 3 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2869 runs late
Carrier accounts for 77% of the 3,781 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 77%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 77%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,897 of the 3,781 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,781 delay minutes reported on DL 2869.
Cancellations run at 2.80%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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 4.6% 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.
Every one of the 357 flights under DL 2869 in the data flew DCA to DTW. 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. 357 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 2869
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2869: 2.80% of its 357 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 2.5 hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to DTW, every carrier and departure
- DTW to DCA, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1558 on the same route84.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1454 on the same route62.5%
- Delta Air Lines 2476 on the same route83.7%
- Delta Air Lines 2030 on the same route66.9%
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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.