Flight number record
DL 737
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Washington
- Route
- ATL → DCA
- Departs
- 11:00
- Flights
- 336
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 737, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 737 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 roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 336 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Key figures
On time
79.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 327 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.08%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 336 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 737 flies
DL 737 is scheduled to leave Atlanta (ATL) at 11:00 local time and reach Washington (DCA) at 12:40. That slot held for 280 of the 336 scheduled departures in the data, so the figures below describe one steady operation rather than a number that moved around the clock.
- Departs 11:00280 flights83.3%
- Departs 11:0434 flights10.1%
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 11:00 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 737 runs level with that at 79.2%. 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 737 next to ATL to DCA
Every carrier on ATL to DCA combined arrived on time 68.7% of the time across 6,798 flights, so DL 737 is 11 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,850 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 66.7% 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 737thin sample | 336 | 79.2% | 53 min | 2.08% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–DCA | 3,850 | 66.7% | 60 min | 2.44% | C |
| All carriers on ATL–DCA | 6,798 | 68.7% | 70 min | 3.43% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 737 quarter by quarter
DL 737 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 62.5%, a swing of 28 points on roughly 67 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 202592 flights78.0%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights79.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights82.4%
- Jul–Sep 202633 flights62.5%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 737 did best on Tuesday at 89.4% on time and worst on Saturday at 67.4%. Each day rests on about 48 flights, so a gap of 22 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 737 runs when it is late
The 68 late arrivals split 30 under half an hour, 21 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 17 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early28 flights8.6%
- Within 15 min231 flights70.6%
- 15–29 min late30 flights9.2%
- 30–59 min late21 flights6.4%
- 1–2 hours late12 flights3.7%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 327 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 59 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 6 made it up before arrival. 15 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 737
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 July 2026, 4 hours 49 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across July, December, January and June, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 July 2026 | 4 hours 49 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 7 December 2025 | 4 hours 25 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 January 2026 | 3 hours 31 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 July 2026 | 2 hours 50 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 18 June 2026 | 2 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 737 runs late
Carrier accounts for 54% of the 3,579 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 12%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,944 of the 3,579 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,579 delay minutes reported on DL 737.
Cancellations sit at 2.08% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.60%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.2% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 547 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.
DL 737 is not only a ATL to DCA flight. It also flew DCA to ATL (312 flights, 73.9% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 336 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCA to ATLthin sample | 312 | 73.9% | 80 min | 1.60% | C |
What to do with this
Booking DL 737
For a booking, read DL 737 as 79.2% on time with 2.08% cancelled over 336 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 360 on the same route69.7%
- Delta Air Lines 537 on the same route67.3%
- Delta Air Lines 380 on the same route80.4%
- Delta Air Lines 325 on the same route58.3%
- Delta Air Lines 926 on the same route84.1%
- Delta Air Lines 727 on the same route53.3%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) 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.