Flight number record

DL 2961

Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Washington

Route: MSP → DCA
Departs: 20:00
Flights: 361
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2961, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2961 sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 361 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 2961 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 84 extra late arrivals.

On time

69.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights

Avg delay

55 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.32%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

9.5%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 361 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Schedule

When DL 2961 flies

DL 2961 flies MSP to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 20:00, used on 126 of 361 flights, with 20:05 (81 flights) and 20:10 (52 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 20:00126 flights34.9%
Departs 20:0581 flights22.4%
Departs 20:1052 flights14.4%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 20:00 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 2961 runs level with that at 69.2%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

Against the route

DL 2961 next to MSP to DCA

Every carrier on MSP to DCA combined arrived on time 74.3% of the time across 2,574 flights, so DL 2961 is 5 points behind it. Delta flew 1,695 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 12 points.

DL 2961 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2961thin sample	361	69.2%	55 min	3.32%	C−
All Delta Air Lines on MSP–DCA	1,695	75.6%	60 min	2.12%	B
All carriers on MSP–DCA	2,574	74.3%	81 min	3.22%	C−
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2961 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter DL 2961 held fairly steady: 71.3% in Jul–Sep 2025, 72.7% in Oct–Dec 2025, 64.2% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 68.1% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 9 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202592 flights71.3%
Oct–Dec 202589 flights72.7%
Jan–Mar 202689 flights64.2%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights68.1%

Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2961 did best on Saturday at 80.0% on time and worst on Thursday at 60.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 2961 runs late

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 5,842 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
40%
National Airspace System
39%
Late-arriving aircraft
19%
Extreme weather
2%

39% 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 2,299 minutes out of 5,842, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,842 delay minutes reported on DL 2961.

Cancellations run at 3.32%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The 931 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

Every one of the 361 flights under DL 2961 in the data flew MSP to DCA. 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. 361 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 2961

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2961: 3.32% of its 361 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 55 minutes, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

Where to go next

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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures