Flight number record
DL 442
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to San Francisco
- Route
- DTW → SFO
- Departs
- 15:50
- Flights
- 351
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 442, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 442 draws a C+. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about 50 minutes behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 351 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 442 runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 102 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.28%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
7.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 351 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 442 flies
DL 442 flies DTW to SFO without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:50, used on 87 of 351 flights, with 16:20 (61 flights) and 16:59 (50 flights) next.
- Departs 15:5087 flights24.8%
- Departs 16:2061 flights17.4%
- Departs 16:5950 flights14.2%
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 15:50 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 442 runs 5 points worse at 67.1%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
DL 442 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 442 is about level with 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 14 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 442thin sample | 351 | 67.1% | 49 min | 0.28% | 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 442 quarter by quarter
DL 442 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 52.2%, a swing of 38 points on roughly 70 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 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202579 flights68.4%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights66.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights52.2%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights77.4%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 442 did best on Tuesday at 80.0% on time and worst on Thursday at 58.8%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 442 runs when it is late
The 115 late arrivals split 51 under half an hour, 39 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 25 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early63 flights18.0%
- Within 15 min172 flights49.1%
- 15–29 min late51 flights14.6%
- 30–59 min late39 flights11.1%
- 1–2 hours late13 flights3.7%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 350 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
13 of 71 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. In the other direction, 57 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 442
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 January 2026, 4 hours 10 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 January 2026 | 4 hours 10 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 21 July 2026 | 4 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 June 2026 | 3 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 May 2026 | 2 hours 54 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 21 August 2026 | 2 hours 34 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 442 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 55% of the 5,642 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%National Airspace System
- 35%Carrier
- 8%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,949 of the 5,642 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,642 delay minutes reported on DL 442.
Cancellations are rare at 0.28%, 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
7.1% 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 about 50 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.
Every one of the 351 flights under DL 442 in the data flew DTW to SFO. 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. 351 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 442
For a booking, read DL 442 as 67.1% on time with 0.28% cancelled over 351 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to SFO, every carrier and departure
- SFO to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 361 on the same route73.8%
- Delta Air Lines 469 on the same route67.8%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) 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
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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 ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.