Flight number record
DL 2966
Delta Air Lines · Norfolk to Atlanta
- Route
- ORF → ATL
- Departs
- 05:20
- Flights
- 339
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2966, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2966 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 14 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 339 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2966's record is 14 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 144 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
91.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 336 completed flights
Avg delay
106 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.88%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.9%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 339 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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 2966 flies
DL 2966 flies ORF to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 05:20, used on 76 of 339 flights, with 05:15 (68 flights) and 05:50 (60 flights) next.
- Departs 05:2076 flights22.4%
- Departs 05:1568 flights20.1%
- Departs 05:5060 flights17.7%
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 05:20 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 2966 runs 2 points better at 91.7%. 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 2966 next to ORF to ATL
Every carrier on ORF to ATL combined arrived on time 85.1% of the time across 2,946 flights, so DL 2966 is 7 points ahead of it. Delta flew 2,687 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 85.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 11 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2966thin sample | 339 | 91.7% | 106 min | 0.88% | A+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ORF–ATL | 2,687 | 85.9% | 83 min | 1.45% | A |
| All carriers on ORF–ATL | 2,946 | 85.1% | 83 min | 1.53% | A |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2966 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 2966 held fairly steady: 93.3% in Jul–Sep 2025, 89.2% in Oct–Dec 2025, 87.3% in Jan–Mar 2026, 95.6% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 93.5% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 8 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 202583 flights89.2%
- Jan–Mar 202673 flights87.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights95.6%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights93.5%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 2966 ranged from 85.7% on Sunday to 95.3% on Wednesday. With about 48 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2966 runs when it is late
DL 2966 often beats the schedule: 149 of 336 completed flights, 44%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 28 late arrivals split 12 under half an hour, 3 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 13 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early149 flights44.3%
- Within 15 min159 flights47.3%
- 15–29 min late12 flights3.6%
- 30–59 min late3 flights0.9%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.8%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 336 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 30 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 10 still arrived on time. 8 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2966
The latest arrival of the period was on 3 November 2025, 8 hours 25 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 3 November 2025 | 8 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 June 2026 | 7 hours 21 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 March 2026 | 6 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 July 2026 | 4 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 May 2026 | 2 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2966 runs late
Carrier accounts for 85% of the 2,958 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 85%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 85%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,523 of the 2,958 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,958 delay minutes reported on DL 2966.
Cancellations are rare at 0.88%, 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 3.9% 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 516 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 339 flights under DL 2966 in the data flew ORF to ATL. 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. 339 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 2966
For a booking, DL 2966 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 91.7% on time and 0.88% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- ORF to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to ORF, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1364 on the same route88.8%
- Delta Air Lines 2755 on the same route87.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2329 on the same route77.0%
- Delta Air Lines 1336 on the same route90.8%
- Delta Air Lines 2925 on the same route85.4%
- Delta Air Lines 1338 on the same route89.8%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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.