Flight number record
DL 786
Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Washington
- Route
- SEA → DCA
- Departs
- 07:20
- Flights
- 328
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 328 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 786's record is 14 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 137 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
91.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 321 completed flights
Avg delay
119 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.13%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 328 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 786 flies
DL 786 flies SEA to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:20, used on 188 of 328 flights, with 07:25 (100 flights) next.
- Departs 07:20188 flights57.3%
- Departs 07:25100 flights30.5%
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 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 91.0%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
DL 786 next to SEA to DCA
Every carrier on SEA to DCA combined arrived on time 82.6% of the time across 1,092 flights, so DL 786 is 8 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 10 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 786thin sample | 328 | 91.0% | 119 min | 2.13% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on SEA–DCAthin sample | 364 | 91.8% | 119 min | 2.75% | A |
| All carriers on SEA–DCA | 1,092 | 82.6% | 64 min | 1.37% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | 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 70.0%, a swing of 25 points on roughly 66 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 flights70.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.1%
- Jan–Mar 202666 flights95.3%
- Apr–Jun 202679 flights94.9%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights91.5%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 786 did best on Friday at 95.7% on time and worst on Thursday at 76.6%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 786 runs when it is late
DL 786 often beats the schedule: 126 of 321 completed flights, 39%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 29 late arrivals split 8 under half an hour, 10 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 11 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early126 flights39.3%
- Within 15 min166 flights51.7%
- 15–29 min late8 flights2.5%
- 30–59 min late10 flights3.1%
- 1–2 hours late5 flights1.6%
- 2+ hours late6 flights1.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 321 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
5 of 25 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 786
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 November 2025, 16 hours 32 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 November 2025 | 16 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 December 2025 | 7 hours 19 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 September 2025 | 6 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 November 2025 | 4 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 September 2025 | 3 hours | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 786 runs late
Carrier accounts for 85% of the 3,457 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 85%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 4%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 85%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,922 of the 3,457 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,457 delay minutes reported on DL 786.
Cancellations sit at 2.13% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.4% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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 (152), 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. 328 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 91.0% on time with 2.13% cancelled over 328 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to SEA, the return direction
- Alaska Airlines 4 on the same route85.2%
- Alaska Airlines 2 on the same route70.6%
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) 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.