Flight number record

DL 2984

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Norfolk

Route: ATL → ORF
Departs: 19:59
Flights: 341
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 2984, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 2984 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 341 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 2984 runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 40 extra late arrivals.

On time

73.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 337 completed flights

Avg delay

59 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.17%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

9.5%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 341 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Schedule

When DL 2984 flies

DL 2984 flies ATL to ORF without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 19:59, used on 110 of 341 flights. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 19:59110 flights32.3%

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 19:59 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 2984 runs 5 points better at 73.6%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

Against the route

DL 2984 next to ATL to ORF

Every carrier on ATL to ORF combined arrived on time 79.0% of the time across 2,919 flights, so DL 2984 is 5 points behind it. Delta flew 2,701 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 8 points.

DL 2984 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 2984thin sample	341	73.6%	59 min	1.17%	C
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–ORF	2,701	79.1%	55 min	1.48%	B
All carriers on ATL–ORF	2,919	79.0%	56 min	1.47%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 2984 quarter by quarter

DL 2984 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 84.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 64.1%, a swing of 20 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 202592 flights64.1%
Oct–Dec 202587 flights68.6%
Jan–Mar 202671 flights78.3%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.4%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 2984 did best on Saturday at 87.0% on time and worst on Friday at 62.5%. Each day rests on about 49 flights, so a gap of 25 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 2984 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 5,256 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
45%
Late-arriving aircraft
27%
National Airspace System
17%
Extreme weather
11%

The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,384 of the 5,256 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,256 delay minutes reported on DL 2984.

Cancellations sit at 1.17% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The 516 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 341 flights under DL 2984 in the data flew ATL to ORF. 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. 341 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 2984

For a booking, DL 2984 is one of the weaker ways to fly ATL to ORF: 5 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