Flight number record
DL 481
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Seattle
- Route
- ATL → SEA
- Departs
- 16:29
- Flights
- 329
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 481, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 481 lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 329 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Key figures
On time
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 329 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.8%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 329 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 481 flies
DL 481 flies ATL to SEA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:29, used on 38 of 329 flights, with 16:28 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 16:2938 flights11.6%
- Departs 16:2836 flights10.9%
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 16:29 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 481 runs 7 points better at 78.4%. 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 481 next to ATL to SEA
Every carrier on ATL to SEA combined arrived on time 76.7% of the time across 3,297 flights, so DL 481 is 2 points ahead of it. Delta flew 2,404 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.8% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 481thin sample | 329 | 78.4% | 51 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–SEA | 2,404 | 76.8% | 58 min | 0.62% | B+ |
| All carriers on ATL–SEA | 3,297 | 76.7% | 57 min | 0.73% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 481 quarter by quarter
DL 481 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 89.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 69.4%, a swing of 20 points on roughly 82 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.
- Oct–Dec 202586 flights74.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights77.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights89.0%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights69.4%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 481 did best on Wednesday at 85.1% on time and worst on Sunday at 70.2%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 481 runs when it is late
DL 481 often beats the schedule: 83 of 329 completed flights, 25%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 71 late arrivals split 28 under half an hour, 24 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 19 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early83 flights25.2%
- Within 15 min175 flights53.2%
- 15–29 min late28 flights8.5%
- 30–59 min late24 flights7.3%
- 1–2 hours late13 flights4.0%
- 2+ hours late6 flights1.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 329 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
10 of 48 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 33 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 SEA.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 481
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 March 2026, 4 hours 3 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 March 2026 | 4 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 July 2026 | 3 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 March 2026 | 2 hours 44 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 August 2026 | 2 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 August 2026 | 2 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 481 runs late
Carrier accounts for 47% of the 3,607 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Carrier
- 38%National Airspace System
- 12%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,690 of the 3,607 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,607 delay minutes reported on DL 481.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are 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 about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,182 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.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including SNA to SEA (30), but none flew often enough under DL 481 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ATL to SEA only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 329 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 481
For a booking, read DL 481 as 78.4% on time with 0.00% cancelled over 329 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to SEA, every carrier and departure
- SEA to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 629 on the same route80.4%
- Delta Air Lines 774 on the same route84.6%
- Delta Air Lines 444 on the same route78.3%
- Delta Air Lines 714 on the same route65.0%
- Alaska Airlines 377 on the same route85.3%
- Delta Air Lines 903 on the same route77.7%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) 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.