Flight number record
DL 325
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Washington
- Route
- ATL → DCA
- Departs
- 18:59
- Flights
- 362
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 325, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 325 draws a D−. Roughly one flight in two arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 362 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 325 runs 19 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 193 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
58.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.04%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
12.6%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 362 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.6% 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 325 flies
DL 325 flies ATL to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:59, used on 128 of 362 flights, with 18:55 (120 flights) and 18:51 (49 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 18:59128 flights35.4%
- Departs 18:55120 flights33.1%
- Departs 18:5149 flights13.5%
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 18:59 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 325 runs 10 points worse at 58.3%. 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 325 next to ATL to DCA
Every carrier on ATL to DCA combined arrived on time 70.1% of the time across 6,812 flights, so DL 325 is 12 points behind it. Delta flew 3,838 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 67.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 23 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 325thin sample | 362 | 58.3% | 58 min | 3.04% | D− |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–DCA | 3,838 | 67.3% | 60 min | 2.58% | C |
| All carriers on ATL–DCA | 6,812 | 70.1% | 70 min | 3.32% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 325 quarter by quarter
DL 325 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 66.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 48.8%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 91 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 flights56.3%
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights61.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights48.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights66.3%
Scale runs 40% to 70%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 325 did best on Saturday at 75.0% on time and worst on Thursday at 46.9%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 28 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 325 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 51% of the 8,430 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.
- 51%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%Extreme weather
51% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 4,316 minutes out of 8,430, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 8,430 delay minutes reported on DL 325.
Cancellations run at 3.04%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
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. 12.6% 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 547 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 362 flights under DL 325 in the data flew ATL to DCA. 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. 362 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 325
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 325: 3.04% of its 362 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 737 on the same route81.1%
- Delta Air Lines 360 on the same route70.8%
- Delta Air Lines 380 on the same route79.7%
- Delta Air Lines 537 on the same route68.9%
- Delta Air Lines 926 on the same route83.3%
- Delta Air Lines 950 on the same route62.5%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.