Flight number record
DL 2871
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Hartford
- Route
- MSP → BDL
- Departs
- 20:15
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2871, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2871 lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 356 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.20%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
7.3%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 2871 flies
DL 2871 flies MSP to BDL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 20:15, used on 78 of 364 flights, with 20:22 (60 flights) and 20:00 (56 flights) next.
- Departs 20:1578 flights21.4%
- Departs 20:2260 flights16.5%
- Departs 20:0056 flights15.4%
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 20:15 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 2871 runs 7 points better at 77.0%. 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 2871 next to MSP to BDL
Every carrier on MSP to BDL combined arrived on time 80.8% of the time across 838 flights, so DL 2871 is 4 points behind it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2871thin sample | 364 | 77.0% | 53 min | 2.20% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–BDL | 838 | 80.8% | 54 min | 2.27% | B |
| All carriers on MSP–BDL | 838 | 80.8% | 54 min | 2.27% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2871 quarter by quarter
DL 2871 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 66.1%, a swing of 17 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 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights81.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights77.4%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights77.5%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights66.1%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 2871 did best on Wednesday at 88.5% on time and worst on Thursday at 62.7%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 26 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2871 runs when it is late
DL 2871 often beats the schedule: 90 of 356 completed flights, 25%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 82 late arrivals split 24 under half an hour, 32 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 26 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early90 flights25.3%
- Within 15 min184 flights51.7%
- 15–29 min late24 flights6.7%
- 30–59 min late32 flights9.0%
- 1–2 hours late23 flights6.5%
- 2+ hours late3 flights0.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 356 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 82 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 15 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2871
The latest arrival of the period was on 19 May 2026, 2 hours 32 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 19 May 2026 | 2 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 January 2026 | 2 hours 29 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 29 November 2025 | 2 hours 7 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 May 2026 | 1 hour 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 July 2026 | 1 hour 50 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2871 runs late
Carrier accounts for 57% of the 4,376 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,474 of the 4,376 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,376 delay minutes reported on DL 2871.
Cancellations sit at 2.20% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
7.3% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,050 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 364 flights under DL 2871 in the data flew MSP to BDL. 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. 364 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 2871
For a booking, read DL 2871 as 77.0% on time with 2.20% cancelled over 364 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to BDL, every carrier and departure
- BDL to MSP, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2007 on the same route84.5%
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.