Flight number record
DL 2898
Delta Air Lines · Buffalo to Detroit
- Route
- BUF → DTW
- Departs
- 06:15
- Flights
- 284
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2898, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2898 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 13 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 284 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2898's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 127 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 279 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.76%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 284 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 2898 flies
DL 2898 flies BUF to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:15, used on 61 of 284 flights, with 06:29 (57 flights) and 06:20 (42 flights) next.
- Departs 06:1561 flights21.5%
- Departs 06:2957 flights20.1%
- Departs 06:2042 flights14.8%
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 06:15 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 2898 runs level with that at 90.0%. 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 2898 next to BUF to DTW
Every carrier on BUF to DTW combined arrived on time 81.7% of the time across 1,294 flights, so DL 2898 is 8 points ahead of it. Delta flew 443 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 84.0% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2898thin sample | 284 | 90.0% | 98 min | 1.76% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on BUF–DTW | 443 | 84.0% | 91 min | 2.71% | B |
| All carriers on BUF–DTW | 1,294 | 81.7% | 102 min | 1.93% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2898 quarter by quarter
DL 2898 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 100.0% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 83.1%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 71 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 flights100.0%
- Oct–Dec 202577 flights83.1%
- Jan–Mar 202624 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights93.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights89.7%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2898 did best on Friday at 94.9% on time and worst on Thursday at 82.9%. Each day rests on about 41 flights, so a gap of 12 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2898 runs when it is late
DL 2898 often beats the schedule: 77 of 279 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 28 late arrivals split 13 under half an hour, 5 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 10 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early77 flights27.6%
- Within 15 min174 flights62.4%
- 15–29 min late13 flights4.7%
- 30–59 min late5 flights1.8%
- 1–2 hours late5 flights1.8%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 279 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
7 of 25 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2898
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 June 2026, 11 hours 33 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 June 2026 | 11 hours 33 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 11 December 2025 | 9 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 November 2025 | 4 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 May 2026 | 2 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 April 2026 | 2 hours 45 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2898 runs late
Carrier accounts for 59% of the 2,742 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Carrier
- 41%National Airspace System
41% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,114 minutes out of 2,742, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,742 delay minutes reported on DL 2898.
Cancellations sit at 1.76% 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 same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including PWM to DTW (2), but none flew often enough under DL 2898 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to BUF to DTW only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 284 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 2898
For a booking, read DL 2898 as 90.0% on time with 1.76% cancelled over 284 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- BUF to DTW, every carrier and departure
- DTW to BUF, the return direction
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
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.