Flight number record
DL 862
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Boston
- Route
- ATL → BOS
- Departs
- 11:10
- Flights
- 286
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 862, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 862 earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 286 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 862's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 67 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 281 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.75%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
5.0%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 286 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 862 flies
DL 862 flies ATL to BOS without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 11:10, used on 40 of 286 flights, with 11:19 (35 flights) and 11:34 (33 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 11:1040 flights14.0%
- Departs 11:1935 flights12.2%
- Departs 11:3433 flights11.5%
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 11:10 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and DL 862 runs 6 points better at 84.3%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
Against the route
DL 862 next to ATL to BOS
Every carrier on ATL to BOS combined arrived on time 74.5% of the time across 4,935 flights, so DL 862 is 10 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,666 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.2% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 862thin sample | 286 | 84.3% | 61 min | 1.75% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–BOS | 3,666 | 76.2% | 59 min | 1.72% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–BOS | 4,935 | 74.5% | 63 min | 1.95% | C |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 862 quarter by quarter
DL 862 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 94.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 79.1%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 95 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 flights82.2%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights79.1%
- Jan–Mar 202625 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202677 flights94.7%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 862 did best on Saturday at 91.9% on time and worst on Monday at 71.8%. Each day rests on about 41 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 862 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 42% of the 2,691 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.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 36%Carrier
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,137 minutes out of 2,691, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,691 delay minutes reported on DL 862.
Cancellations sit at 1.75% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 946 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.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including MSY to LGA (55) and LGA to MSY (2), but none flew often enough under DL 862 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ATL to BOS only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 286 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 862
For a booking, read DL 862 as 84.3% on time with 1.75% cancelled over 286 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to BOS, every carrier and departure
- BOS to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 855 on the same route88.1%
- Delta Air Lines 865 on the same route79.8%
- Delta Air Lines 726 on the same route69.5%
- Delta Air Lines 350 on the same route75.5%
- Delta Air Lines 300 on the same route68.5%
- Delta Air Lines 987 on the same route89.8%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.