Flight number record
DL 2897
Delta Air Lines · Kansas City to Salt Lake City
- Route
- MCI → SLC
- Departs
- 06:40
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2897, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2897 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 14 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2897's record is 14 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 143 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
91.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
1.9%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 2897 flies
DL 2897 flies MCI to SLC without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:40, used on 148 of 365 flights, with 06:30 (62 flights) and 06:28 (41 flights) next.
- Departs 06:40148 flights40.5%
- Departs 06:3062 flights17.0%
- Departs 06:2841 flights11.2%
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 06:40 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 2897 runs 2 points better at 91.6%. 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 2897 next to MCI to SLC
Every carrier on MCI to SLC combined arrived on time 87.0% of the time across 1,005 flights, so DL 2897 is 5 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 11 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2897 | 365 | 91.6% | 59 min | 1.37% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on MCI–SLC | 1,005 | 87.0% | 61 min | 0.90% | A+ |
| All carriers on MCI–SLC | 1,005 | 87.0% | 61 min | 0.90% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2897 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 2897 held fairly steady: 93.3% in Jul–Sep 2025, 89.1% in Oct–Dec 2025, 88.4% in Jan–Mar 2026, 93.3% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 96.7% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights89.1%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights88.4%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights93.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights96.7%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2897 ranged from 86.5% on Sunday to 96.1% on Thursday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2897 runs when it is late
DL 2897 often beats the schedule: 141 of 359 completed flights, 39%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 15 of the 30 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 7 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early141 flights39.3%
- Within 15 min188 flights52.4%
- 15–29 min late15 flights4.2%
- 30–59 min late8 flights2.2%
- 1–2 hours late3 flights0.8%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 359 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
6 of 21 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 29% of them. 15 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2897
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 March 2026, 5 hours 17 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2 March 2026 | 5 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 February 2026 | 3 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 June 2026 | 3 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 November 2025 | 3 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 September 2025 | 1 hour 19 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2897 runs late
Carrier accounts for 77% of the 1,767 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 77%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 77%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,361 of the 1,767 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,767 delay minutes reported on DL 2897.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.9% 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 920 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 2897 in the data flew MCI to SLC. 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 2897
For a booking, DL 2897 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 91.6% on time and 1.37% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- MCI to SLC, every carrier and departure
- SLC to MCI, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2903 on the same route86.1%
- Delta Air Lines 2882 on the same route83.1%
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) 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.