Flight number record
DL 537
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Washington
- Route
- ATL → DCA
- Departs
- 21:59
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 537, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 537 draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 537 runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 100 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 352 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.75%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
11.9%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 537 flies
DL 537 flies ATL to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:59, used on 229 of 364 flights, with 21:55 (89 flights) next.
- Departs 21:59229 flights62.9%
- Departs 21:5589 flights24.5%
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 21:59 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 537 runs 3 points worse at 67.3%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
DL 537 next to ATL to DCA
Every carrier on ATL to DCA combined arrived on time 68.7% of the time across 6,798 flights, so DL 537 is about level with it. Delta flew 3,850 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 66.7% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 14 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 537thin sample | 364 | 67.3% | 67 min | 2.75% | C |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–DCA | 3,850 | 66.7% | 60 min | 2.44% | C |
| All carriers on ATL–DCA | 6,798 | 68.7% | 70 min | 3.43% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 537 quarter by quarter
DL 537 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 49.2%, a swing of 38 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 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights68.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights69.4%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights70.0%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights49.2%
Scale runs 40% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 537 did best on Saturday at 79.6% on time and worst on Sunday at 56.2%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 23 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 537 runs when it is late
The 115 late arrivals split 39 under half an hour, 34 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 42 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early59 flights16.8%
- Within 15 min178 flights50.6%
- 15–29 min late39 flights11.1%
- 30–59 min late34 flights9.7%
- 1–2 hours late27 flights7.7%
- 2+ hours late15 flights4.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 352 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 99 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 11 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 27 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 DCA.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 537
The latest arrival of the period was on 17 August 2026, 11 hours 47 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 17 August 2026 | 11 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 July 2026 | 3 hours 41 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 21 December 2025 | 3 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 June 2026 | 3 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 July 2026 | 2 hours 47 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 537 runs late
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 7,670 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,328 of the 7,670 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,670 delay minutes reported on DL 537.
Cancellations run at 2.75%, 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
11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 547 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 364 flights under DL 537 in the data flew ATL to DCA. 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 537
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 537: 2.75% of its 364 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 360 on the same route69.7%
- Delta Air Lines 380 on the same route80.4%
- Delta Air Lines 325 on the same route58.3%
- Delta Air Lines 926 on the same route84.1%
- Delta Air Lines 727 on the same route53.3%
- Delta Air Lines 950 on the same route63.7%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.