Flight number record
DL 832
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Washington
- Route
- ATL → DCA
- Departs
- 17:55
- Flights
- 321
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 832, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 832 draws a D−. Roughly one flight in two arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 321 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 832 runs 19 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 193 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
58.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 307 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.05%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
16.6%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 321 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.6% 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 832 flies
DL 832 flies ATL to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:55, used on 106 of 321 flights, with 17:59 (51 flights) and 17:58 (51 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 17:55106 flights33.0%
- Departs 17:5951 flights15.9%
- Departs 17:5851 flights15.9%
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 17:55 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 832 runs 10 points worse at 58.3%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
Against the route
DL 832 next to ATL to DCA
Every carrier on ATL to DCA combined arrived on time 70.1% of the time across 6,812 flights, so DL 832 is 12 points behind it. Delta flew 3,838 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 67.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 23 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 832thin sample | 321 | 58.3% | 73 min | 4.05% | D− |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–DCA | 3,838 | 67.3% | 60 min | 2.58% | C |
| All carriers on ATL–DCA | 6,812 | 70.1% | 70 min | 3.32% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 832 quarter by quarter
DL 832 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 64.0% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 52.1%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 80 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 202580 flights54.5%
- Oct–Dec 202578 flights61.6%
- Jan–Mar 202677 flights52.1%
- Apr–Jun 202686 flights64.0%
Scale runs 45% to 70%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 832 did best on Wednesday at 65.3% on time and worst on Thursday at 44.9%. Each day rests on about 46 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 832 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 44% of the 9,321 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.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 36%Carrier
- 18%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 3,326 of the 9,321 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,321 delay minutes reported on DL 832.
Cancellations run at 4.05%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
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. 16.6% 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 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. 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.
DL 832 is not only a ATL to DCA flight. It also flew DCA to ATL (254 flights, 73.8% 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. 321 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 | 254 | 73.8% | 99 min | 5.51% | C− |
What to do with this
Booking DL 832
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 832: 4.05% of its 321 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs a little over an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 737 on the same route81.1%
- Delta Air Lines 360 on the same route70.8%
- Delta Air Lines 380 on the same route79.7%
- Delta Air Lines 537 on the same route68.9%
- Delta Air Lines 926 on the same route83.3%
- Delta Air Lines 325 on the same route58.3%
- 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.