Flight number record

DL 542

Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Atlanta

Route: SEA → ATL
Departs: 13:30
Flights: 350
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 542, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 542 lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 350 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

On time

79.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights

Avg delay

82 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.57%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

6.9%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 350 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.

Schedule

When DL 542 flies

DL 542 flies SEA to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 13:30, used on 80 of 350 flights, with 11:55 (62 flights) and 13:34 (35 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 13:3080 flights22.9%
Departs 11:5562 flights17.7%
Departs 13:3435 flights10.0%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 13:30 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and DL 542 runs level with that at 79.8%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

DL 542 next to SEA to ATL

Every carrier on SEA to ATL combined arrived on time 82.8% of the time across 3,276 flights, so DL 542 is 3 points behind it. Delta flew 2,371 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.8% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 2 points.

DL 542 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 542thin sample	350	79.8%	82 min	0.57%	B+
All Delta Air Lines on SEA–ATL	2,371	83.8%	86 min	0.51%	B+
All carriers on SEA–ATL	3,276	82.8%	73 min	0.55%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 542 quarter by quarter

DL 542 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 85.9% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 75.8%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 88 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 202592 flights85.9%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights75.8%
Jan–Mar 202680 flights78.2%
Apr–Jun 202686 flights79.1%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 542 did best on Tuesday at 87.5% on time and worst on Friday at 72.5%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 542 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 65% of the 5,711 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Carrier
65%
National Airspace System
19%
Late-arriving aircraft
16%
Extreme weather
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 65%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 3,699 of the 5,711 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,711 delay minutes reported on DL 542.

Cancellations are rare at 0.57%, below the national 1.81% 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

6.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,182 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 350 flights under DL 542 in the data flew SEA 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. 350 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 542

For a booking, read DL 542 as 79.8% on time with 0.57% cancelled over 350 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

Where to go next

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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures