Flight number record
DL 2888
Delta Air Lines · Miami to Washington
- Route
- MIA → DCA
- Departs
- 11:22
- Flights
- 254
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2888, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2888 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 254 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 2888 runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 40 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 251 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.79%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
11.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 254 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 2888 flies
DL 2888 flies MIA to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 11:22, used on 80 of 254 flights, with 11:21 (62 flights) and 11:10 (31 flights) next.
- Departs 11:2280 flights31.5%
- Departs 11:2162 flights24.4%
- Departs 11:1031 flights12.2%
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 11:22 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 2888 runs 5 points worse at 73.3%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
DL 2888 next to MIA to DCA
Every carrier on MIA to DCA combined arrived on time 75.9% of the time across 3,954 flights, so DL 2888 is 3 points behind it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2888thin sample | 254 | 73.3% | 75 min | 0.79% | C+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on MIA–DCAthin sample | 363 | 78.9% | 73 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| All carriers on MIA–DCA | 3,954 | 75.9% | 70 min | 2.05% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2888 quarter by quarter
DL 2888 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 88.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 62.9%, a swing of 25 points on roughly 85 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.
- Oct–Dec 202512 flights—
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights62.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights74.4%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights88.3%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2888 ranged from 66.7% on Friday to 77.8% on Tuesday. With about 36 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2888 runs when it is late
DL 2888 often beats the schedule: 70 of 251 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 67 late arrivals split 21 under half an hour, 17 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 29 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early70 flights27.9%
- Within 15 min114 flights45.4%
- 15–29 min late21 flights8.4%
- 30–59 min late17 flights6.8%
- 1–2 hours late17 flights6.8%
- 2+ hours late12 flights4.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 251 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
8 of 58 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. In the other direction, 17 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 DCA.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2888
The latest arrival of the period was on 29 January 2026, 5 hours 5 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 29 January 2026 | 5 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 20 January 2026 | 4 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 February 2026 | 4 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 July 2026 | 4 hours 2 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 12 June 2026 | 3 hours 59 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 2888 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 61% of the 5,054 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 15%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
61% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,054 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 to one. The split is drawn from 5,054 delay minutes reported on DL 2888.
Cancellations are rare at 0.79%, 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
11.6% 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.
The 919 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.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including BIS to MSP (40) and DCA to MIA (31), but none flew often enough under DL 2888 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to MIA to DCA only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 254 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 2888
For a booking, read DL 2888 as 73.3% on time with 0.79% cancelled over 254 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- MIA to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to MIA, the return direction
- American Airlines 2648 on the same route60.9%
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.