Flight number record
DL 2963
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Washington
- Route
- MSP → DCA
- Departs
- 14:33
- Flights
- 360
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. 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 rests on 360 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
76.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.94%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
9.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 360 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 360 flights, with 14:37 (56 flights) next.
- Departs 14:3371 flights19.7%
- Departs 14:3756 flights15.6%
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 14:33 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 2963 runs 4 points better at 76.0%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Against the route
DL 2963 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 2963 is about level with 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 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2963thin sample | 360 | 76.0% | 71 min | 1.94% | B |
| 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 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 2026 at 61.0%, a swing of 21 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 202530 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights77.8%
- Jan–Mar 202687 flights73.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights82.2%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights61.0%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2963 did best on Tuesday at 84.3% on time and worst on Thursday at 69.4%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2963 runs when it is late
DL 2963 often beats the schedule: 118 of 350 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 84 late arrivals split 28 under half an hour, 22 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 34 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early118 flights33.7%
- Within 15 min148 flights42.3%
- 15–29 min late28 flights8.0%
- 30–59 min late22 flights6.3%
- 1–2 hours late22 flights6.3%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 350 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
12 of 77 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. In the other direction, 19 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 2963
The latest arrival of the period was on 21 July 2026, 6 hours 39 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 21 July 2026 | 6 hours 39 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 7 August 2026 | 5 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 July 2026 | 4 hours 43 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 31 October 2025 | 3 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 November 2025 | 3 hours 39 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 2963 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 52% of the 5,927 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%National Airspace System
- 34%Carrier
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
52% 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 3,068 minutes out of 5,927, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,927 delay minutes reported on DL 2963.
Cancellations sit at 1.94% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.83%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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.
DL 2963 is not only a MSP to DCA flight. It also flew DCA to MSP (356 flights, 73.8% 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. 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCA to MSPthin sample | 356 | 73.8% | 107 min | 2.25% | C |
What to do with this
Booking DL 2963
For a booking, read DL 2963 as 76.0% on time with 1.94% cancelled over 360 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 route69.3%
- 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
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.