Flight number record

DL 786

Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Washington

Route: SEA → DCA
Departs: 07:20
Flights: 329
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 786, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 786 earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 14 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.1 hours. That rests on 329 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 786's record is 14 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 136 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

91.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 320 completed flights

Avg delay

126 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.43%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

3.8%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 329 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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.

Schedule

When DL 786 flies

DL 786 flies SEA to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:20, used on 154 of 329 flights, with 07:25 (100 flights) and 07:40 (35 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 07:20154 flights46.8%
Departs 07:25100 flights30.4%
Departs 07:4035 flights10.6%

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 07:20 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 786 runs level with that at 91.2%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

DL 786 next to SEA to DCA

Every carrier on SEA to DCA combined arrived on time 81.6% of the time across 1,094 flights, so DL 786 is 10 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 10 points.

DL 786 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 786thin sample	329	91.2%	126 min	2.43%	A
All Delta Air Lines on SEA–DCA	365	92.1%	126 min	3.01%	A−
All carriers on SEA–DCA	1,094	81.6%	68 min	1.74%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 786 quarter by quarter

DL 786 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 95.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 85.2%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 82 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 flights85.2%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.1%
Jan–Mar 202666 flights95.3%
Apr–Jun 202679 flights94.9%

Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 786 did best on Saturday at 97.9% on time and worst on Thursday at 73.3%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 25 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 786 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 86% of the 3,528 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.

Carrier
86%
National Airspace System
9%
Late-arriving aircraft
3%
Security
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 86%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 3,036 of the 3,528 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,528 delay minutes reported on DL 786.

Cancellations sit at 2.43% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

At 2,329 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 one other city pair in the data, including DCA to SEA (127), but none flew often enough under DL 786 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SEA to DCA only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 329 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 786

For a booking, read DL 786 as 91.2% on time with 2.43% cancelled over 329 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

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