Flight number record

DL 361

Delta Air Lines · Detroit to San Francisco

Route: DTW → SFO
Departs: 08:30
Flights: 365
Period: September 2025 to August 2026

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 361, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 361 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 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.

On time

73.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights

Avg delay

43 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.82%

National rate is 1.89%

1 hour+ late

5.8%

National rate is 8.3%

These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 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.

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Schedule

When DL 361 flies

DL 361 flies DTW to SFO without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:30, used on 184 of 365 flights, with 08:25 (68 flights) and 08:40 (44 flights) next.

Departs 08:30184 flights50.4%
Departs 08:2568 flights18.6%
Departs 08:4044 flights12.1%

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 08:30 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 361 runs 10 points worse at 73.8%. 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 361 next to DTW to SFO

Every carrier on DTW to SFO combined arrived on time 66.4% of the time across 1,792 flights, so DL 361 is 7 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,385 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 65.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 7 points.

DL 361 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 361	365	73.8%	43 min	0.82%	C+
All Delta Air Lines on DTW–SFO	1,385	65.1%	61 min	0.72%	C+
All carriers on DTW–SFO	1,792	66.4%	65 min	0.67%	C+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,039,517	81.1%	71 min	1.74%	B

Across the year

DL 361 quarter by quarter

DL 361 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 65.9%, a swing of 27 points on roughly 73 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 flights93.3%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights72.5%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights73.9%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights65.9%
Jul–Sep 202662 flights77.4%

Scale runs 55% to 100%.

By weekday, DL 361 did best on Friday at 82.7% on time and worst on Sunday at 62.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Arrival by arrival

How late DL 361 runs when it is late

Most of the lateness is short. 49 of the 95 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 21 reached an hour or more.

15+ min early71 flights19.6%
Within 15 min196 flights54.1%
15–29 min late49 flights13.5%
30–59 min late25 flights6.9%
1–2 hours late18 flights5.0%
2+ hours late3 flights0.8%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 362 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 42 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 1 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 54 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SFO.

The worst days

Worst days for DL 361

The latest arrival of the period was on 18 October 2025, 4 hours 10 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).

The latest arrivals of DL 361 in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
18 October 2025	4 hours 10 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
8 April 2026	2 hours 53 minutes	Carrier
5 December 2025	2 hours 19 minutes	Carrier
14 March 2026	1 hour 55 minutes	Carrier
21 January 2026	1 hour 41 minutes	National Airspace System

Delay causes

Why DL 361 runs late

National Airspace System accounts for 48% of the 4,062 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

National Airspace System
48%
Carrier
37%
Late-arriving aircraft
13%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,490 of the 4,062 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,062 delay minutes reported on DL 361.

Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, below the national 1.89% 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

5.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,079 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

DL 361 is not only a DTW to SFO flight. It also flew SFO to DTW (290 flights, 75.6% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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.

Other routes flown as DL 361
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SFO to DTWthin sample	290	75.6%	53 min	0.69%	B+

What to do with this

Booking DL 361

For a booking, read DL 361 as 73.8% on time with 0.82% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures