Flight number record
DL 2960
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Minneapolis
- Route
- ATL → MSP
- Departs
- 08:35
- Flights
- 327
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2960, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2960 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 12 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 35 minutes. That rests on 327 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2960's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 117 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 326 completed flights
Avg delay
35 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.31%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
1.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 327 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 2960 flies
DL 2960 flies ATL to MSP without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:35, used on 63 of 327 flights, with 08:44 (56 flights) and 08:25 (43 flights) next.
- Departs 08:3563 flights19.3%
- Departs 08:4456 flights17.1%
- Departs 08:2543 flights13.1%
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 08:35 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 2960 runs 5 points better at 89.0%. 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 2960 next to ATL to MSP
Every carrier on ATL to MSP combined arrived on time 79.9% of the time across 3,509 flights, so DL 2960 is 9 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,227 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2960thin sample | 327 | 89.0% | 35 min | 0.31% | A+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–MSP | 3,227 | 81.1% | 55 min | 0.40% | B+ |
| All carriers on ATL–MSP | 3,509 | 79.9% | 56 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2960 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 2960 held fairly steady: 93.3% in Jul–Sep 2025, 83.7% in Oct–Dec 2025, 86.3% in Jan–Mar 2026, 92.3% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 91.9% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 10 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 flights83.7%
- Jan–Mar 202652 flights86.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights92.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights91.9%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2960 did best on Friday at 95.7% on time and worst on Sunday at 82.6%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2960 runs when it is late
Most of the lateness is short. 23 of the 36 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 4 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early77 flights23.6%
- Within 15 min213 flights65.3%
- 15–29 min late23 flights7.1%
- 30–59 min late9 flights2.8%
- 1–2 hours late2 flights0.6%
- 2+ hours late2 flights0.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 326 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
5 of 28 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 13 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2960
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 March 2026, 2 hours 33 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 16 March 2026 | 2 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 November 2025 | 2 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 July 2026 | 1 hour 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 December 2025 | 1 hour 7 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 26 March 2026 | 48 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2960 runs late
Carrier accounts for 62% of the 1,273 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 13%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 62%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 788 of the 1,273 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,273 delay minutes reported on DL 2960.
Cancellations are rare at 0.31%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.2% 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 907 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 327 flights under DL 2960 in the data flew ATL to MSP. 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. 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.
What to do with this
Booking DL 2960
For a booking, DL 2960 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 89.0% on time and 0.31% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to MSP, every carrier and departure
- MSP to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1310 on the same route77.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2668 on the same route92.0%
- Delta Air Lines 2901 on the same route85.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2654 on the same route68.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2825 on the same route84.1%
- Delta Air Lines 2981 on the same route72.2%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) 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.