Flight number record
DL 554
Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Atlanta
- Route
- SEA → ATL
- Departs
- 11:40
- Flights
- 302
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 554, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 554 lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 302 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Key figures
On time
77.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 301 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 302 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Schedule
When DL 554 flies
DL 554 flies SEA to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 11:40, used on 74 of 302 flights, with 11:56 (58 flights) and 11:45 (35 flights) next.
- Departs 11:4074 flights24.5%
- Departs 11:5658 flights19.2%
- Departs 11:4535 flights11.6%
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 11:40 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 554 runs level with that at 77.4%. 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 554 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 554 is 7 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 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 554thin sample | 302 | 77.4% | 59 min | 0.00% | 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 554 quarter by quarter
DL 554 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 74.2%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 76 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 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights76.7%
- Jan–Mar 202628 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights74.7%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights74.2%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 554 did best on Wednesday at 85.7% on time and worst on Sunday at 65.9%. Each day rests on about 43 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 554 runs when it is late
The 68 late arrivals split 23 under half an hour, 27 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 18 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early72 flights23.9%
- Within 15 min161 flights53.5%
- 15–29 min late23 flights7.6%
- 30–59 min late27 flights9.0%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 301 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 77 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 27 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 18 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 554
The latest arrival of the period was on 1 August 2026, 6 hours 20 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in March 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 1 August 2026 | 6 hours 20 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 13 March 2026 | 4 hours 6 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 20 March 2026 | 3 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 March 2026 | 2 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 April 2026 | 2 hours 24 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 554 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 3,997 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 3,997 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 3,997 delay minutes reported on DL 554.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
6.0% 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 about 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.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including ATL to AGS (26) and BWI to ATL (24), but none flew often enough under DL 554 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SEA to ATL only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 302 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 554
For a booking, DL 554 is one of the weaker ways to fly SEA to ATL: 7 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 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 542 on the same route79.3%
- Delta Air Lines 560 on the same route84.6%
- Delta Air Lines 652 on the same route89.0%
- 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.