Flight number record
DL 542
Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Atlanta
- Route
- SEA → ATL
- Departs
- 13:30
- Flights
- 350
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. 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 rests on 350 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
79.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.57%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
7.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 350 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 542 flies
DL 542 flies SEA to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 13:30, used on 88 of 350 flights, with 11:55 (62 flights) and 13:35 (56 flights) next.
- Departs 13:3088 flights25.1%
- Departs 11:5562 flights17.7%
- Departs 13:3556 flights16.0%
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 13:30 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 542 runs level with that at 79.3%. 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 542 next to SEA to ATL
Every carrier on SEA to ATL combined arrived on time 84.0% of the time across 3,294 flights, so DL 542 is 5 points behind it. Delta flew 2,402 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 84.2% 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 542thin sample | 350 | 79.3% | 81 min | 0.57% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on SEA–ATL | 2,402 | 84.2% | 84 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| All carriers on SEA–ATL | 3,294 | 84.0% | 74 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 542 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 542 held fairly steady: 80.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 75.8% in Oct–Dec 2025, 78.2% in Jan–Mar 2026, 79.1% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 85.5% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 10 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights80.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights75.8%
- Jan–Mar 202680 flights78.2%
- Apr–Jun 202686 flights79.1%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights85.5%
Scale runs 65% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 542 did best on Tuesday at 85.1% on time and worst on Sunday at 73.1%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 12 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 542 runs when it is late
DL 542 often beats the schedule: 123 of 347 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 72 late arrivals split 21 under half an hour, 26 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 25 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early123 flights35.4%
- Within 15 min152 flights43.8%
- 15–29 min late21 flights6.1%
- 30–59 min late26 flights7.5%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights3.2%
- 2+ hours late14 flights4.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 347 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 79 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 31 still arrived on time. 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 ATL.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 542
The latest arrival of the period was on 1 June 2026, 10 hours 22 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 June 2026 | 10 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 September 2025 | 6 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 September 2025 | 5 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 31 May 2026 | 5 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 5 hours 18 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 542 runs late
Carrier accounts for 62% of the 5,864 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 62%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,629 of the 5,864 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,864 delay minutes reported on DL 542.
Cancellations are rare at 0.57%, 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
7.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 79.3% on time with 0.57% cancelled over 350 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to SEA, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 562 on the same route82.4%
- Alaska Airlines 334 on the same route80.6%
- Delta Air Lines 569 on the same route94.8%
- Delta Air Lines 560 on the same route84.6%
- Delta Air Lines 652 on the same route89.0%
- Delta Air Lines 554 on the same route77.4%
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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.