Flight number record
DL 533
Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Detroit
- Route
- SEA → DTW
- Departs
- 15:15
- Flights
- 320
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 533, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 533 earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 320 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 533's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 78 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 316 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.62%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 320 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 533 flies
DL 533 flies SEA to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:15, used on 99 of 320 flights, with 13:30 (89 flights) and 14:30 (57 flights) next.
- Departs 15:1599 flights30.9%
- Departs 13:3089 flights27.8%
- Departs 14:3057 flights17.8%
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 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 533 runs 13 points better at 85.1%. 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 533 next to SEA to DTW
Every carrier on SEA to DTW combined arrived on time 86.6% of the time across 2,063 flights, so DL 533 is 2 points behind it. Delta flew 1,515 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 87.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 533thin sample | 320 | 85.1% | 76 min | 0.62% | A+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on SEA–DTW | 1,515 | 87.1% | 71 min | 0.86% | A+ |
| All carriers on SEA–DTW | 2,063 | 86.6% | 65 min | 0.68% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 533 quarter by quarter
DL 533 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 93.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 75.3%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 80 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 202520 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202579 flights93.7%
- Jan–Mar 202679 flights75.3%
- Apr–Jun 202680 flights93.6%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights79.0%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 533 did best on Saturday at 96.8% on time and worst on Sunday at 72.3%. Each day rests on about 46 flights, so a gap of 25 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 533 runs when it is late
DL 533 often beats the schedule: 113 of 316 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 47 late arrivals split 18 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 14 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early113 flights35.8%
- Within 15 min156 flights49.4%
- 15–29 min late18 flights5.7%
- 30–59 min late15 flights4.7%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights2.2%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 316 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 50 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 16 still arrived on time. 13 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 533
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 September 2025, 9 hours 17 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 18 September 2025 | 9 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 March 2026 | 7 hours 21 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 January 2026 | 6 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 August 2026 | 3 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 March 2026 | 2 hours 31 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 533 runs late
Carrier accounts for 58% of the 3,582 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 58%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,093 of the 3,582 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,582 delay minutes reported on DL 533.
Cancellations are rare at 0.62%, 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 4.4% 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 1,927 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 two other city pairs in the data, including PHL to ATL (16) and ATL to PHL (16), but none flew often enough under DL 533 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SEA to DTW only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 320 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 533
For a booking, DL 533 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 85.1% on time and 0.62% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to DTW, every carrier and departure
- DTW to SEA, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 812 on the same route92.0%
- Alaska Airlines 313 on the same route85.3%
- Delta Air Lines 810 on the same route89.6%
- Delta Air Lines 1706 on the same route80.8%
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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.