Flight number record
DL 653
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Salt Lake City
- Route
- ATL → SLC
- Departs
- 17:43
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 653, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 653 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 about an hour on average. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 364 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
7.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 653 flies
DL 653 flies ATL to SLC without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:43, used on 103 of 365 flights, with 17:45 (71 flights) and 17:55 (42 flights) next.
- Departs 17:43103 flights28.2%
- Departs 17:4571 flights19.5%
- Departs 17:5542 flights11.5%
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 17:43 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 653 runs 11 points better at 79.4%. 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 653 next to ATL to SLC
Every carrier on ATL to SLC combined arrived on time 82.7% of the time across 2,965 flights, so DL 653 is 3 points behind it. Delta flew 2,959 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 82.7% 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 653 | 365 | 79.4% | 64 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–SLC | 2,959 | 82.7% | 60 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| All carriers on ATL–SLC | 2,965 | 82.7% | 60 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 653 quarter by quarter
DL 653 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 63.9%, a swing of 29 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 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights79.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights80.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.6%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights63.9%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 653 did best on Wednesday at 94.1% on time and worst on Sunday at 67.3%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 27 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 653 runs when it is late
The 75 late arrivals split 22 under half an hour, 25 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 28 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early69 flights19.0%
- Within 15 min220 flights60.4%
- 15–29 min late22 flights6.0%
- 30–59 min late25 flights6.9%
- 1–2 hours late21 flights5.8%
- 2+ hours late7 flights1.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 364 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
24 of 92 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. Only 7 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 653
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 August 2026, 5 hours 32 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across August, July, February and January, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 August 2026 | 5 hours 32 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 July 2026 | 4 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 July 2026 | 4 hours 16 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 22 February 2026 | 3 hours 19 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 January 2026 | 2 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 653 runs late
Carrier accounts for 47% of the 4,794 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,231 of the 4,794 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,794 delay minutes reported on DL 653.
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
7.7% 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 1,590 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 365 flights under DL 653 in the data flew ATL to SLC. 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. 365 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 653
For a booking, read DL 653 as 79.4% on time with 0.00% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to SLC, every carrier and departure
- SLC to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 663 on the same route87.9%
- Delta Air Lines 830 on the same route87.8%
- Delta Air Lines 387 on the same route90.3%
- Delta Air Lines 423 on the same route85.6%
- Delta Air Lines 526 on the same route79.6%
- Delta Air Lines 660 on the same route75.0%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) 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.