Flight number record
DL 526
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Salt Lake City
- Route
- ATL → SLC
- Departs
- 15:15
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 526, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 526 lands a B+, 2 points 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 45 minutes on average. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 363 completed flights
Avg delay
45 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Schedule
When DL 526 flies
DL 526 flies ATL to SLC without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:15, used on 146 of 364 flights, with 15:20 (99 flights) and 14:59 (62 flights) next.
- Departs 15:15146 flights40.1%
- Departs 15:2099 flights27.2%
- Departs 14:5962 flights17.0%
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 15:15 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 526 runs 8 points better at 79.6%. 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 526 next to ATL to SLC
Every carrier on ATL to SLC combined arrived on time 82.7% of the time across 2,965 flights, so DL 526 is 3 points behind it. Delta flew 2,959 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 82.7% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 526thin sample | 364 | 79.6% | 45 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–SLC | 2,959 | 82.7% | 60 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| All carriers on ATL–SLC | 2,965 | 82.7% | 60 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 526 quarter by quarter
DL 526 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 86.8% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 68.3%, a swing of 19 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 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights81.5%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights76.7%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights86.8%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights68.3%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 526 did best on Wednesday at 88.5% on time and worst on Friday at 69.2%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 526 runs when it is late
DL 526 often beats the schedule: 104 of 363 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 74 late arrivals split 32 under half an hour, 29 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 13 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early104 flights28.7%
- Within 15 min185 flights51.0%
- 15–29 min late32 flights8.8%
- 30–59 min late29 flights8.0%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights1.9%
- 2+ hours late6 flights1.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 363 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, 24 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 SLC.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 526
The latest arrival of the period was on 4 September 2025, 4 hours 1 minute behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 4 September 2025 | 4 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 2 hours 39 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 February 2026 | 2 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 March 2026 | 2 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 January 2026 | 2 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 526 runs late
Carrier accounts for 55% of the 3,336 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,831 of the 3,336 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,336 delay minutes reported on DL 526.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% 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.
At 1,590 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 364 flights under DL 526 in the data flew ATL to SLC. 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. 364 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 526
For a booking, read DL 526 as 79.6% on time with 0.27% cancelled over 364 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to SLC, every carrier and departure
- SLC to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 663 on the same route87.9%
- Delta Air Lines 830 on the same route87.8%
- Delta Air Lines 387 on the same route90.3%
- Delta Air Lines 423 on the same route85.6%
- Delta Air Lines 653 on the same route79.4%
- Delta Air Lines 660 on the same route75.0%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) 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.