Flight number record
DL 803
Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Route
- SEA → DFW
- Departs
- 09:15
- Flights
- 255
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 803, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 803 lands a B, 4 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 255 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
81.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 249 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.18%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 255 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 803 flies
DL 803 flies SEA to DFW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:15, used on 117 of 255 flights, with 09:30 (62 flights) and 09:35 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 09:15117 flights45.9%
- Departs 09:3062 flights24.3%
- Departs 09:3536 flights14.1%
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 09:15 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 803 runs 3 points worse at 81.1%. 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 803 next to SEA to DFW
Every carrier on SEA to DFW combined arrived on time 78.0% of the time across 5,228 flights, so DL 803 is 3 points ahead of it. Delta flew 720 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 803thin sample | 255 | 81.1% | 74 min | 1.18% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on SEA–DFW | 720 | 76.6% | 75 min | 1.53% | B |
| All carriers on SEA–DFW | 5,228 | 78.0% | 75 min | 1.66% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 803 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 803 held fairly steady: 82.8% in Jan–Mar 2026, 84.3% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 78.7% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 6 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Oct–Dec 202512 flights—
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights82.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights78.7%
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 803 did best on Tuesday at 88.6% on time and worst on Wednesday at 74.3%. Each day rests on about 36 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 803 runs when it is late
DL 803 often beats the schedule: 83 of 249 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 47 late arrivals split 17 under half an hour, 10 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early83 flights33.3%
- Within 15 min119 flights47.8%
- 15–29 min late17 flights6.8%
- 30–59 min late10 flights4.0%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights4.4%
- 2+ hours late9 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 249 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
6 of 43 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 803
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 May 2026, 5 hours 39 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 May 2026 | 5 hours 39 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 March 2026 | 4 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 July 2026 | 4 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 May 2026 | 3 hours 12 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 4 April 2026 | 2 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 803 runs late
Carrier accounts for 55% of the 3,480 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,926 of the 3,480 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,480 delay minutes reported on DL 803.
Cancellations sit at 1.18% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.18%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.0% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,660 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 two other city pairs in the data, including DFW to SEA (190) and LAS to MSP (109), but none flew often enough under DL 803 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SEA to DFW only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 255 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 803
For a booking, read DL 803 as 81.1% on time with 1.18% cancelled over 255 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to DFW, every carrier and departure
- DFW to SEA, the return direction
- American Airlines 2748 on the same route94.0%
- Delta Air Lines 870 on the same route74.0%
- American Airlines 767 on the same route67.6%
- American Airlines 1667 on the same route88.4%
- American Airlines 707 on the same route76.8%
- Alaska Airlines 414 on the same route90.9%
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.