Flight number record
DL 541
Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Washington
- Route
- SEA → IAD
- Departs
- 15:20
- Flights
- 349
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 541, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 541 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 349 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
76.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 344 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.15%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
10.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 349 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 541 flies
DL 541 flies SEA to IAD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:20, used on 60 of 349 flights, with 16:05 (58 flights) and 15:55 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 15:2060 flights17.2%
- Departs 16:0558 flights16.6%
- Departs 15:5536 flights10.3%
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 15:20 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 541 runs 5 points better at 76.5%. 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 541 next to SEA to IAD
Every carrier on SEA to IAD combined arrived on time 84.8% of the time across 1,822 flights, so DL 541 is 8 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 541thin sample | 349 | 76.5% | 79 min | 1.15% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on SEA–IADthin sample | 361 | 76.7% | 80 min | 1.11% | B |
| All carriers on SEA–IAD | 1,822 | 84.8% | 58 min | 0.60% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 541 quarter by quarter
DL 541 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 71.1%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 70 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 flights73.3%
- Oct–Dec 202580 flights77.2%
- Jan–Mar 202686 flights71.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights83.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights74.2%
Scale runs 65% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 541 did best on Wednesday at 86.0% on time and worst on Friday at 66.7%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 541 runs when it is late
DL 541 often beats the schedule: 102 of 344 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 81 late arrivals split 23 under half an hour, 22 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 36 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early102 flights29.7%
- Within 15 min161 flights46.8%
- 15–29 min late23 flights6.7%
- 30–59 min late22 flights6.4%
- 1–2 hours late23 flights6.7%
- 2+ hours late13 flights3.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 344 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
18 of 85 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. 14 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 541
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 October 2025, 15 hours 3 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 16 October 2025 | 15 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 August 2026 | 5 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 December 2025 | 4 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 January 2026 | 4 hours 7 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 22 July 2026 | 3 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 541 runs late
Carrier accounts for 66% of the 6,399 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 66%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 66%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,210 of the 6,399 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,399 delay minutes reported on DL 541.
Cancellations sit at 1.15% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
10.5% 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.
At 2,305 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 one other city pair in the data, including LGA to ATL (16), but none flew often enough under DL 541 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SEA to IAD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 349 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 541
For a booking, DL 541 is one of the weaker ways to fly SEA to IAD: 8 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 IAD, every carrier and departure
- IAD to SEA, the return direction
- Alaska Airlines 367 on the same route83.0%
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) 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.