Flight number record

DL 2981

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Minneapolis

Route: ATL → MSP
Departs: 15:58
Flights: 334
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2981, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2981 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 334 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.

On time

73.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 332 completed flights

Avg delay

53 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.30%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

5.4%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 334 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Schedule

When DL 2981 flies

DL 2981 flies ATL to MSP without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:58, used on 88 of 334 flights, with 15:20 (51 flights) and 15:40 (34 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 15:5888 flights26.3%
Departs 15:2051 flights15.3%
Departs 15:4034 flights10.2%

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 15:58 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 72.4%, and DL 2981 runs level with that at 73.8%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

DL 2981 next to ATL to MSP

Every carrier on ATL to MSP combined arrived on time 81.2% of the time across 3,524 flights, so DL 2981 is 7 points behind it. Delta flew 3,221 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 82.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 8 points.

DL 2981 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2981thin sample	334	73.8%	53 min	0.30%	C+
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–MSP	3,221	82.1%	56 min	0.37%	B+
All carriers on ATL–MSP	3,524	81.2%	57 min	0.48%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2981 quarter by quarter

DL 2981 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 82.3% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 67.0%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 84 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 202562 flights82.3%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights67.0%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights72.7%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights75.8%

Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2981 did best on Wednesday at 86.4% on time and worst on Saturday at 64.1%. Each day rests on about 48 flights, so a gap of 22 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 2981 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 4,592 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
44%
Late-arriving aircraft
35%
National Airspace System
17%
Extreme weather
4%

35% 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 4,592 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 4,592 delay minutes reported on DL 2981.

Cancellations are rare at 0.30%, below the national 1.81% 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

5.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 907 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.

Every one of the 334 flights under DL 2981 in the data flew ATL to MSP. 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. 334 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 2981

For a booking, DL 2981 is one of the weaker ways to fly ATL to MSP: 7 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.

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