Flight number record

DL 2978

Delta Air Lines · Cleveland to Atlanta

Route: CLE → ATL
Departs: 12:34
Flights: 347
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2978, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2978 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 a little over an hour. That rests on 347 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 2978's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 121 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

89.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 339 completed flights

Avg delay

70 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.31%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

2.1%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 347 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 2978 flies

DL 2978 flies CLE to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:34, used on 36 of 347 flights. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 12:3436 flights10.4%

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 12:34 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and DL 2978 runs 11 points better at 89.7%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

DL 2978 next to CLE to ATL

Every carrier on CLE to ATL combined arrived on time 85.4% of the time across 3,407 flights, so DL 2978 is 4 points ahead of it. Delta flew 2,693 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 89.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 8 points.

DL 2978 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2978thin sample	347	89.7%	70 min	2.31%	A
All Delta Air Lines on CLE–ATL	2,693	89.3%	74 min	1.93%	A
All carriers on CLE–ATL	3,407	85.4%	76 min	2.05%	A
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2978 quarter by quarter

DL 2978 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 93.8% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 83.3%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 87 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 202591 flights91.1%
Oct–Dec 202579 flights83.3%
Jan–Mar 202686 flights93.8%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights90.0%

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

By weekday, DL 2978 did best on Saturday at 97.7% on time and worst on Sunday at 85.4%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 12 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 2978 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 54% of the 2,458 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.

Carrier
54%
Late-arriving aircraft
38%
National Airspace System
8%

38% 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 2,458 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 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 2,458 delay minutes reported on DL 2978.

Cancellations sit at 2.31% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.1% 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.

The 554 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 2978 is not only a CLE to ATL flight. It also flew ATL to CLE (339 flights, 90.3% 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. 347 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 2978
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
ATL to CLEthin sample	339	90.3%	40 min	2.36%	A

What to do with this

Booking DL 2978

For a booking, read DL 2978 as 89.7% on time with 2.31% cancelled over 347 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

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