Flight number record

DL 2968

Delta Air Lines · Philadelphia to Detroit

Route: PHL → DTW
Departs: 09:39
Flights: 340
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2968, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2968 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 12 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 50 minutes. That rests on 340 flights, with a median arrival 17 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 2968's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 124 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

90.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 331 completed flights

Avg delay

49 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.65%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

2.4%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 340 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 17 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.

Schedule

When DL 2968 flies

DL 2968 flies PHL to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:39, used on 75 of 340 flights, with 09:46 (56 flights) and 09:40 (52 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 09:3975 flights22.1%
Departs 09:4656 flights16.5%
Departs 09:4052 flights15.3%

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 09:39 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and DL 2968 runs 6 points better at 90.0%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

DL 2968 next to PHL to DTW

Every carrier on PHL to DTW combined arrived on time 79.8% of the time across 2,952 flights, so DL 2968 is 10 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,557 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 82.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 8 points.

DL 2968 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2968thin sample	340	90.0%	49 min	2.65%	A
All Delta Air Lines on PHL–DTW	1,557	82.3%	105 min	2.12%	B
All carriers on PHL–DTW	2,952	79.8%	96 min	3.05%	B−
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2968 quarter by quarter

DL 2968 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 95.6% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 84.6%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 85 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 202590 flights93.2%
Oct–Dec 202577 flights85.3%
Jan–Mar 202682 flights84.6%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights95.6%

Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2968 ranged from 87.0% on Sunday to 96.1% on Tuesday. With about 49 flights behind each day, a spread of 9 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Delay causes

Why DL 2968 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 72% of the 1,607 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
72%
National Airspace System
14%
Carrier
12%
Extreme weather
1%

72% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 1,607 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 1,607 delay minutes reported on DL 2968.

Cancellations run at 2.65%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.4% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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.

DL 2968 is not only a PHL to DTW flight. It also flew DTW to PHL (340 flights, 88.8% 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. 340 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.

Other routes flown as DL 2968
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DTW to PHLthin sample	340	88.8%	55 min	2.94%	A

What to do with this

Booking DL 2968

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 2968: 2.65% of its 340 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs roughly 50 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