Flight number record
DL 489
Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Raleigh
- Route
- SEA → RDU
- Departs
- 15:55
- Flights
- 360
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 489, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 489 lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 360 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
76.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 354 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.39%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 360 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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.
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Schedule
When DL 489 flies
DL 489 flies SEA to RDU without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:55, used on 81 of 360 flights, with 15:59 (72 flights) and 16:00 (60 flights) next.
- Departs 15:5581 flights22.5%
- Departs 15:5972 flights20.0%
- Departs 16:0060 flights16.7%
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 15:55 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 489 runs 4 points better at 76.3%. 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 489 next to SEA to RDU
Every carrier on SEA to RDU combined arrived on time 81.4% of the time across 918 flights, so DL 489 is 5 points behind it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 489thin sample | 360 | 76.3% | 50 min | 1.39% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on SEA–RDUthin sample | 364 | 76.5% | 50 min | 1.37% | B |
| All carriers on SEA–RDU | 918 | 81.4% | 44 min | 0.76% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 489 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 489 held fairly steady: 80.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 76.5% in Oct–Dec 2025, 79.1% in Jan–Mar 2026, 73.6% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 74.2% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 6 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights80.0%
- Oct–Dec 202587 flights76.5%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights79.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights73.6%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights74.2%
Scale runs 65% to 85%.
By weekday, DL 489 did best on Tuesday at 82.7% on time and worst on Monday at 66.7%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 489 runs when it is late
DL 489 often beats the schedule: 92 of 354 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 42 of the 84 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 22 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early92 flights26.0%
- Within 15 min178 flights50.3%
- 15–29 min late42 flights11.9%
- 30–59 min late20 flights5.6%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights4.2%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 354 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
16 of 66 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 34 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 RDU.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 489
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 June 2026, 4 hours 27 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).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 June 2026 | 4 hours 27 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 April 2026 | 3 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 January 2026 | 2 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 February 2026 | 2 hours 23 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 May 2026 | 2 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 489 runs late
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 4,223 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,134 of the 4,223 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,223 delay minutes reported on DL 489.
Cancellations sit at 1.39% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
6.2% 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 2,354 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 360 flights under DL 489 in the data flew SEA to RDU. 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. 360 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 489
For a booking, DL 489 is one of the weaker ways to fly SEA to RDU: 5 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to RDU, every carrier and departure
- RDU to SEA, the return direction
- Alaska Airlines 572 on the same route84.7%
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.