Flight number record
DL 380
Delta Air Lines · Washington to Atlanta
- Route
- DCA → ATL
- Departs
- 12:20
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 380, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 380 lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
5.6%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 380 flies
DL 380 flies DCA to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:20, used on 95 of 365 flights, with 12:10 (77 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 12:2095 flights26.0%
- Departs 12:1077 flights21.1%
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 12:20 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and DL 380 runs 2 points better at 80.8%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
Against the route
DL 380 next to DCA to ATL
Every carrier on DCA to ATL combined arrived on time 78.8% of the time across 6,813 flights, so DL 380 is 2 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,838 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 80.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 380 | 365 | 80.8% | 66 min | 1.10% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on DCA–ATL | 3,838 | 80.9% | 88 min | 2.81% | B |
| All carriers on DCA–ATL | 6,813 | 78.8% | 80 min | 3.54% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 380 quarter by quarter
DL 380 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 87.8% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 70.7%, a swing of 17 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 202592 flights87.8%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights70.7%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights81.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights83.3%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 380 did best on Wednesday at 88.5% on time and worst on Sunday at 72.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 17 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 380 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 4,556 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.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 4,556 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 54 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 4,556 delay minutes reported on DL 380.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.6% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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.
DL 380 is not only a DCA to ATL flight. It also flew ATL to DCA (365 flights, 79.7% 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATL to DCA | 365 | 79.7% | 48 min | 1.64% | B |
What to do with this
Booking DL 380
For a booking, read DL 380 as 80.8% on time with 1.10% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to DCA, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 926 on the same route87.2%
- Delta Air Lines 410 on the same route94.9%
- Delta Air Lines 850 on the same route68.2%
- Delta Air Lines 455 on the same route85.4%
- Delta Air Lines 360 on the same route72.9%
- Delta Air Lines 330 on the same route91.1%
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.