Flight number record

DL 726

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Boston

Route: ATL → BOS
Departs: 13:59
Flights: 353
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 726, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 726 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 353 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 726 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 81 extra late arrivals.

On time

69.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.13%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

10.1%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 353 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Schedule

When DL 726 flies

DL 726 flies ATL to BOS without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 13:59, used on 109 of 353 flights, with 13:45 (102 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 13:59109 flights30.9%
Departs 13:45102 flights28.9%

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 13:59 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and DL 726 runs 9 points worse at 69.5%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

DL 726 next to ATL to BOS

Every carrier on ATL to BOS combined arrived on time 74.5% of the time across 4,935 flights, so DL 726 is 5 points behind it. Delta flew 3,666 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.2% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 12 points.

DL 726 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 726thin sample	353	69.5%	57 min	1.13%	C
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–BOS	3,666	76.2%	59 min	1.72%	B
All carriers on ATL–BOS	4,935	74.5%	63 min	1.95%	C
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 726 quarter by quarter

DL 726 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 82.1% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 59.8%, a swing of 22 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 flights68.1%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights59.8%
Jan–Mar 202682 flights82.1%
Apr–Jun 202687 flights69.8%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 726 did best on Wednesday at 76.9% on time and worst on Sunday at 59.6%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 17 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 726 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 60% of the 6,076 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.

National Airspace System
60%
Carrier
28%
Late-arriving aircraft
11%
Extreme weather
1%

60% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 3,649 minutes out of 6,076, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 6,076 delay minutes reported on DL 726.

Cancellations sit at 1.13% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.57%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The 946 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

Every one of the 353 flights under DL 726 in the data flew ATL to BOS. 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. 353 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 726

For a booking, DL 726 is one of the weaker ways to fly ATL to BOS: 5 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.

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