Flight number record
DL 2983
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Washington
- Route
- MSP → DCA
- Departs
- 10:05
- Flights
- 351
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2983, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 2983 earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 351 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 2983's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 68 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.14%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 351 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 2983 flies
DL 2983 flies MSP to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 10:05, used on 69 of 351 flights, with 10:25 (58 flights) next.
- Departs 10:0569 flights19.7%
- Departs 10:2558 flights16.5%
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 10:05 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 2983 runs level with that at 84.1%. 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 2983 next to MSP to DCA
Every carrier on MSP to DCA combined arrived on time 74.6% of the time across 2,632 flights, so DL 2983 is 10 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,701 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 2983thin sample | 351 | 84.1% | 61 min | 1.14% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–DCA | 1,701 | 75.9% | 61 min | 1.94% | B |
| All carriers on MSP–DCA | 2,632 | 74.6% | 85 min | 3.19% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 2983 quarter by quarter
DL 2983 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 90.8% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 77.0%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 70 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 202530 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights84.3%
- Jan–Mar 202683 flights81.2%
- Apr–Jun 202687 flights90.8%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights77.0%
Scale runs 70% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 2983 ranged from 79.6% on Sunday to 88.5% on Tuesday. With about 50 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.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 2983 runs when it is late
DL 2983 often beats the schedule: 115 of 347 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 55 late arrivals split 19 under half an hour, 20 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 16 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early115 flights33.1%
- Within 15 min177 flights51.0%
- 15–29 min late19 flights5.5%
- 30–59 min late20 flights5.8%
- 1–2 hours late9 flights2.6%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 347 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 45 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 4 made it up before arrival. 14 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 2983
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 July 2026, 7 hours 16 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 July 2026 | 7 hours 16 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 8 May 2026 | 3 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 January 2026 | 2 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 July 2026 | 2 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 March 2026 | 2 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 2983 runs late
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 3,334 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 39%National Airspace System
- 9%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,710 of the 3,334 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,334 delay minutes reported on DL 2983.
Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.89%, 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 4.6% 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 931 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 one other city pair in the data, including DCA to MSP (135), but none flew often enough under DL 2983 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to MSP to DCA only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 351 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 2983
For a booking, read DL 2983 as 84.1% on time with 1.14% cancelled over 351 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to MSP, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 2963 on the same route76.0%
- Delta Air Lines 2961 on the same route69.3%
- Delta Air Lines 2958 on the same route83.7%
- Delta Air Lines 2962 on the same route64.0%
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) 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.