Flight number record
DL 2963
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Washington
- Route
- MSP → DCA
- Departs
- 14:33
- Flights
- 361
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2963, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2963 lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 361 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
76.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.94%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
11.4%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 361 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 2963 flies
DL 2963 flies MSP to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 14:33, used on 71 of 361 flights, with 14:31 (42 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 14:3371 flights19.7%
- Departs 14:3142 flights11.6%
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 14:33 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 72.4%, and DL 2963 runs 4 points better at 76.3%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
Against the route
DL 2963 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 2963 is 2 points ahead of 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 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2963thin sample | 361 | 76.3% | 75 min | 1.94% | B |
| 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 2963 quarter by quarter
DL 2963 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 82.2% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 71.6%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 90 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 202592 flights71.6%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights77.8%
- Jan–Mar 202687 flights73.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights82.2%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2963 did best on Tuesday at 86.5% on time and worst on Sunday at 70.8%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 2963 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 45% of the 6,191 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 45%National Airspace System
- 40%Carrier
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,507 of the 6,191 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,191 delay minutes reported on DL 2963.
Cancellations sit at 1.94% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.11%.
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. 11.4% 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.
DL 2963 is not only a MSP to DCA flight. It also flew DCA to MSP (356 flights, 74.6% 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. 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCA to MSPthin sample | 356 | 74.6% | 134 min | 2.53% | C |
What to do with this
Booking DL 2963
For a booking, read DL 2963 as 76.3% on time with 1.94% cancelled over 361 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to MSP, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2961 on the same route69.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2958 on the same route83.1%
- Delta Air Lines 2983 on the same route84.9%
- Delta Air Lines 2962 on the same route61.4%
- 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.