Flight number record
DL 2971
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Route
- MSP → DFW
- Departs
- 14:50
- Flights
- 315
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2971, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2971 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 315 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
74.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 309 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 315 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 2971 flies
DL 2971 flies MSP to DFW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 14:50, used on 67 of 315 flights, with 14:47 (43 flights) and 14:56 (34 flights) next.
- Departs 14:5067 flights21.3%
- Departs 14:4743 flights13.7%
- Departs 14:5634 flights10.8%
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 14:50 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 2971 runs 3 points better at 74.8%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
DL 2971 next to MSP to DFW
Every carrier on MSP to DFW combined arrived on time 77.8% of the time across 3,312 flights, so DL 2971 is 3 points behind it. Delta flew 1,413 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 6 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2971thin sample | 315 | 74.8% | 68 min | 0.95% | C+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–DFW | 1,413 | 79.6% | 56 min | 1.49% | B |
| All carriers on MSP–DFW | 3,312 | 77.8% | 83 min | 2.23% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2971 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 2971 held fairly steady: 69.0% in Oct–Dec 2025, 77.8% in Jan–Mar 2026, 77.5% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 74.0% 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 202529 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202588 flights69.0%
- Jan–Mar 202674 flights77.8%
- Apr–Jun 202674 flights77.5%
- Jul–Sep 202650 flights74.0%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 2971 did best on Tuesday at 85.4% on time and worst on Sunday at 62.2%. Each day rests on about 45 flights, so a gap of 23 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2971 runs when it is late
DL 2971 often beats the schedule: 84 of 309 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 78 late arrivals split 25 under half an hour, 28 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 25 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early84 flights27.2%
- Within 15 min147 flights47.6%
- 15–29 min late25 flights8.1%
- 30–59 min late28 flights9.1%
- 1–2 hours late12 flights3.9%
- 2+ hours late13 flights4.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 309 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 78 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. 15 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2971
The latest arrival of the period was on 10 May 2026, 6 hours 18 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 10 May 2026 | 6 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 May 2026 | 4 hours 11 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 December 2025 | 4 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 December 2025 | 3 hours 47 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 7 June 2026 | 3 hours 23 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 2971 runs late
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 5,268 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,146 of the 5,268 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,268 delay minutes reported on DL 2971.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.95%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.1% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 852 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.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including DFW to MSP (91) and ATL to CVG (5), but none flew often enough under DL 2971 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to MSP to DFW only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 315 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 2971
For a booking, read DL 2971 as 74.8% on time with 0.95% cancelled over 315 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to DFW, every carrier and departure
- DFW to MSP, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2967 on the same route75.9%
- Delta Air Lines 2972 on the same route84.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2970 on the same route83.0%
- American Airlines 1395 on the same route86.3%
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.