Flight number record

DL 3021

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Pensacola

Route: ATL → PNS
Departs: 21:48
Flights: 282
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 3021, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 3021 lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 282 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

On time

76.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 279 completed flights

Avg delay

53 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.71%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

6.5%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 282 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 3021 flies

DL 3021 flies ATL to PNS without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:48, used on 30 of 282 flights, with 20:19 (30 flights) and 19:51 (30 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 21:4830 flights10.6%
Departs 20:1930 flights10.6%
Departs 19:5130 flights10.6%

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 21:48 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 3021 runs 6 points better at 76.7%. 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 3021 next to ATL to PNS

Every carrier on ATL to PNS combined arrived on time 83.7% of the time across 2,803 flights, so DL 3021 is 7 points behind it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 5 points.

DL 3021 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 3021thin sample	282	76.7%	53 min	0.71%	B+
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–PNS	2,803	83.7%	60 min	1.75%	B
All carriers on ATL–PNS	2,803	83.7%	60 min	1.75%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 3021 quarter by quarter

DL 3021 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 90.6% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 67.2%, a swing of 23 points on roughly 71 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 202564 flights67.2%
Oct–Dec 202553 flights90.6%
Jan–Mar 202675 flights73.6%
Apr–Jun 202690 flights77.8%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 3021 did best on Saturday at 83.9% on time and worst on Wednesday at 70.6%. Each day rests on about 40 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 3021 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 50% of the 3,420 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
50%
Late-arriving aircraft
30%
National Airspace System
16%
Extreme weather
4%

The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, 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 1,693 of the 3,420 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,420 delay minutes reported on DL 3021.

Cancellations are rare at 0.71%, 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

6.5% 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.

Every one of the 282 flights under DL 3021 in the data flew ATL to PNS. 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. 282 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 3021

For a booking, DL 3021 is one of the weaker ways to fly ATL to PNS: 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