Flight number record

DL 2869

Delta Air Lines · Washington to Detroit

Route: DCA → DTW
Departs: 06:00
Flights: 362
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2869, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2869 earns an A−. Nearly every flight arrives 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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.4 hours. That rests on 362 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 2869's record is 16 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 161 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

93.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights

Avg delay

147 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.31%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

3.7%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 362 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

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 183 of 362 flights, with 06:05 (128 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 06:00183 flights50.6%
Departs 06:05128 flights35.4%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

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 93.7%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

DL 2869 next to DCA to DTW

Every carrier on DCA to DTW combined arrived on time 76.6% of the time across 2,979 flights, so DL 2869 is 17 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,745 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 12 points.

DL 2869 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2869thin sample	362	93.7%	147 min	3.31%	A−
All Delta Air Lines on DCA–DTW	1,745	79.6%	88 min	2.46%	B
All carriers on DCA–DTW	2,979	76.6%	86 min	3.79%	B−
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2869 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter DL 2869 held fairly steady: 93.3% in Jul–Sep 2025, 91.3% in Oct–Dec 2025, 93.9% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 96.6% in Apr–Jun 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 202592 flights93.3%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.3%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights93.9%
Apr–Jun 202688 flights96.6%

Scale runs 85% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2869 ranged from 90.0% on Friday to 98.0% on Tuesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 8 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Delay causes

Why DL 2869 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 77% of the 3,231 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Carrier
77%
National Airspace System
23%

The largest share of delay minutes, 77%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,480 of the 3,231 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,231 delay minutes reported on DL 2869.

Cancellations run at 3.31%, against 1.81% 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 3.7% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 362 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. 362 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: 3.31% of its 362 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 2.4 hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

Where to go next

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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures