Flight number record
DL 2881
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Orlando
- Route
- ATL → MCO
- Departs
- 19:20
- Flights
- 347
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2881, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2881 draws a D+. Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 347 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 2881 runs 16 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 158 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
61.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 343 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.58%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
15.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 347 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 2881 flies
DL 2881 flies ATL to MCO without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 19:20, used on 114 of 347 flights, with 19:00 (86 flights) and 19:25 (43 flights) next.
- Departs 19:20114 flights32.9%
- Departs 19:0086 flights24.8%
- Departs 19:2543 flights12.4%
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 19:20 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 2881 runs 7 points worse at 61.5%. 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 2881 next to ATL to MCO
Every carrier on ATL to MCO combined arrived on time 70.3% of the time across 8,267 flights, so DL 2881 is 9 points behind it. Delta flew 5,534 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 70.5% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 20 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2881thin sample | 347 | 61.5% | 67 min | 0.58% | D+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–MCO | 5,534 | 70.5% | 65 min | 1.32% | C |
| All carriers on ATL–MCO | 8,267 | 70.3% | 75 min | 1.58% | C |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2881 quarter by quarter
DL 2881 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 67.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 39.3%, a swing of 28 points on roughly 87 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 202521 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights67.4%
- Jan–Mar 202683 flights64.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights65.9%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights39.3%
Scale runs 30% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2881 did best on Tuesday at 69.4% on time and worst on Sunday at 43.1%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 26 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2881 runs when it is late
The 132 late arrivals split 36 under half an hour, 44 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 52 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early20 flights5.8%
- Within 15 min191 flights55.7%
- 15–29 min late36 flights10.5%
- 30–59 min late44 flights12.8%
- 1–2 hours late33 flights9.6%
- 2+ hours late19 flights5.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 343 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 112 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 11 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 31 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at MCO.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2881
The latest arrival of the period was on 17 July 2026, 6 hours 34 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across July, March, May, August and October, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 17 July 2026 | 6 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 March 2026 | 5 hours | National Airspace System |
| 22 May 2026 | 4 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 August 2026 | 4 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 October 2025 | 3 hours 42 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 2881 runs late
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 8,883 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,972 of the 8,883 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,883 delay minutes reported on DL 2881.
Cancellations are rare at 0.58%, 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
15.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
Every one of the 347 flights under DL 2881 in the data flew ATL to MCO. 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. 347 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 2881
For a booking, DL 2881 is a flight to put a long connection behind. 15.2% of its completed flights arrived an hour or more late, which a short layover will not absorb. If the onward flight is on a separate ticket, the risk sits with you.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to MCO, every carrier and departure
- MCO to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1658 on the same route83.4%
- Delta Air Lines 1030 on the same route80.2%
- Delta Air Lines 1213 on the same route86.9%
- Delta Air Lines 1497 on the same route57.1%
- Delta Air Lines 1742 on the same route55.5%
- Delta Air Lines 664 on the same route84.0%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.