Flight number record
DL 2872
Delta Air Lines · Baltimore to Minneapolis
- Route
- BWI → MSP
- Departs
- 06:00
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2872, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2872 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 12 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2872's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 121 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.64%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 2872 flies
DL 2872 flies BWI to MSP without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:00, used on 91 of 365 flights, with 06:05 (88 flights) and 06:17 (55 flights) next.
- Departs 06:0091 flights24.9%
- Departs 06:0588 flights24.1%
- Departs 06:1755 flights15.1%
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 2872 runs level with that at 89.4%. 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 2872 next to BWI to MSP
Every carrier on BWI to MSP combined arrived on time 78.5% of the time across 1,423 flights, so DL 2872 is 11 points ahead of it. Delta flew 923 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 84.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2872 | 365 | 89.4% | 84 min | 1.64% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on BWI–MSP | 923 | 84.4% | 105 min | 1.84% | B |
| All carriers on BWI–MSP | 1,423 | 78.5% | 80 min | 2.11% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2872 quarter by quarter
DL 2872 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 95.6% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 83.9%, a swing of 12 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 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights90.1%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights87.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights95.6%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights83.9%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2872 ranged from 84.0% on Monday to 92.3% on Thursday. 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.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2872 runs when it is late
DL 2872 often beats the schedule: 130 of 359 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 38 late arrivals split 16 under half an hour, 9 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 13 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early130 flights36.2%
- Within 15 min191 flights53.2%
- 15–29 min late16 flights4.5%
- 30–59 min late9 flights2.5%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.7%
- 2+ hours late7 flights1.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 359 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
4 of 29 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. 13 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2872
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 August 2026, 7 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 August 2026 | 7 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 September 2025 | 5 hours 19 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 November 2025 | 4 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 September 2025 | 4 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 May 2026 | 4 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2872 runs late
Carrier accounts for 84% of the 3,188 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 84%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 84%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,683 of the 3,188 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,188 delay minutes reported on DL 2872.
Cancellations sit at 1.64% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% 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.
The 936 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 2872 in the data flew BWI to MSP. 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 2872
For a booking, read DL 2872 as 89.4% on time with 1.64% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- BWI to MSP, every carrier and departure
- MSP to BWI, the return direction
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- 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.