Flight number record
DL 2961
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Washington
- Route
- MSP → DCA
- Departs
- 20:00
- Flights
- 360
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 360 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 2961 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 80 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 349 completed flights
Avg delay
48 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.78%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.3%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 360 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 125 of 360 flights, with 20:05 (55 flights) and 20:25 (41 flights) next.
- Departs 20:00125 flights34.7%
- Departs 20:0555 flights15.3%
- Departs 20:2541 flights11.4%
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 20:00 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 2961 runs level with that at 69.3%. 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 2961 next to MSP to DCA
Every carrier on MSP to DCA combined arrived on time 74.6% of the time across 2,632 flights, so DL 2961 is 5 points behind it. Delta flew 1,701 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 12 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2961thin sample | 360 | 69.3% | 48 min | 2.78% | C |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–DCA | 1,701 | 75.9% | 61 min | 1.94% | B |
| All carriers on MSP–DCA | 2,632 | 74.6% | 85 min | 3.19% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2961 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 2961 held fairly steady: 72.7% in Oct–Dec 2025, 64.2% in Jan–Mar 2026, 68.1% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 66.7% in Jul–Sep 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 202530 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights72.7%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights64.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights68.1%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights66.7%
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2961 did best on Saturday at 78.0% on time and worst on Friday at 56.9%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2961 runs when it is late
DL 2961 often beats the schedule: 110 of 349 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 107 late arrivals split 40 under half an hour, 38 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 29 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early110 flights31.5%
- Within 15 min132 flights37.8%
- 15–29 min late40 flights11.5%
- 30–59 min late38 flights10.9%
- 1–2 hours late24 flights6.9%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 349 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 84 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 10 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 33 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DCA.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2961
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 June 2026, 3 hours 36 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across June, July, May and November, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 12 June 2026 | 3 hours 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 July 2026 | 2 hours 27 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 May 2026 | 2 hours 20 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 November 2025 | 2 hours 18 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 25 May 2026 | 2 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2961 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 5,161 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 36%Carrier
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
47% 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 2,425 minutes out of 5,161, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,161 delay minutes reported on DL 2961.
Cancellations run at 2.78%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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
8.3% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
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.
Every one of the 360 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. 360 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: 2.78% of its 360 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs roughly 50 minutes, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to MSP, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2963 on the same route76.0%
- Delta Air Lines 2983 on the same route84.1%
- Delta Air Lines 2958 on the same route83.7%
- Delta Air Lines 2962 on the same route64.0%
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) 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
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.