Flight number record
DL 2903
Delta Air Lines · Kansas City to Salt Lake City
- Route
- MCI → SLC
- Departs
- 18:00
- Flights
- 327
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2903, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2903 earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 327 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2903's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 88 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 323 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.92%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 327 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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 2903 flies
DL 2903 flies MCI to SLC without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:00, used on 46 of 327 flights, with 14:53 (38 flights) next.
- Departs 18:0046 flights14.1%
- Departs 14:5338 flights11.6%
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 18:00 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 2903 runs 18 points better at 86.1%. 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 2903 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 2903 is about level with it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2903thin sample | 327 | 86.1% | 61 min | 0.92% | 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 2903 quarter by quarter
DL 2903 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 90.5% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 78.8%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 82 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 202525 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202587 flights78.8%
- Jan–Mar 202686 flights90.5%
- Apr–Jun 202677 flights88.3%
- Jul–Sep 202652 flights82.7%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2903 did best on Thursday at 93.8% on time and worst on Monday at 78.0%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2903 runs when it is late
DL 2903 often beats the schedule: 145 of 323 completed flights, 45%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 45 late arrivals split 13 under half an hour, 14 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 18 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early145 flights44.9%
- Within 15 min133 flights41.2%
- 15–29 min late13 flights4.0%
- 30–59 min late14 flights4.3%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights4.6%
- 2+ hours late3 flights0.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 323 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
9 of 46 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. 8 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2903
The latest arrival of the period was on 25 October 2025, 3 hours 31 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 25 October 2025 | 3 hours 31 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 August 2026 | 2 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 July 2026 | 2 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 October 2025 | 1 hour 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 March 2026 | 1 hour 52 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 2903 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 2,759 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 2,759 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 to one. The split is drawn from 2,759 delay minutes reported on DL 2903.
Cancellations sit at 0.92% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.31%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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.
DL 2903 is not only a MCI to SLC flight. It also flew SLC to MCI (302 flights, 85.1% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 327 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SLC to MCIthin sample | 302 | 85.1% | 48 min | 1.66% | A |
What to do with this
Booking DL 2903
For a booking, DL 2903 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 86.1% on time and 0.92% 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 2897 on the same route91.6%
- 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
- 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.