Flight number record
DL 516
Delta Air Lines · Dallas to Atlanta
- Route
- DAL → ATL
- Departs
- 06:00
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 516, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 516 earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 13 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 516's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 128 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 354 completed flights
Avg delay
105 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.74%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 516 flies
DL 516 flies DAL to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:00, used on 205 of 365 flights, with 06:05 (127 flights) next.
- Departs 06:00205 flights56.2%
- Departs 06:05127 flights34.8%
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 06:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 516 runs level with that at 90.1%. 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 516 next to DAL to ATL
Every carrier on DAL to ATL combined arrived on time 78.1% of the time across 3,297 flights, so DL 516 is 12 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,800 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.2% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 516 | 365 | 90.1% | 105 min | 2.74% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on DAL–ATL | 1,800 | 81.2% | 89 min | 2.06% | B |
| All carriers on DAL–ATL | 3,297 | 78.1% | 72 min | 1.88% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 516 quarter by quarter
DL 516 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 100.0% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 84.7%, a swing of 15 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 flights100.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights88.0%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights89.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.7%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights96.7%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 516 did best on Sunday at 94.1% on time and worst on Saturday at 80.9%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 516 runs when it is late
DL 516 often beats the schedule: 117 of 354 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 35 late arrivals split 12 under half an hour, 7 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 16 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early117 flights33.1%
- Within 15 min202 flights57.1%
- 15–29 min late12 flights3.4%
- 30–59 min late7 flights2.0%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.7%
- 2+ hours late10 flights2.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 354 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
7 of 33 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 516
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 June 2026, 8 hours 24 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 June 2026 | 8 hours 24 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 January 2026 | 7 hours 19 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 May 2026 | 5 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 25 October 2025 | 4 hours 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 March 2026 | 4 hours 16 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 516 runs late
Carrier accounts for 68% of the 3,663 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 68%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 7%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 68%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,500 of the 3,663 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,663 delay minutes reported on DL 516.
Cancellations run at 2.74%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 721 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.
Every one of the 365 flights under DL 516 in the data flew DAL to ATL. 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. 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.
What to do with this
Booking DL 516
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 516: 2.74% of its 365 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs close to two hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- DAL to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to DAL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 512 on the same route69.7%
- Delta Air Lines 2780 on the same route76.1%
- Delta Air Lines 1115 on the same route82.7%
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) 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
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.