Flight number record
DL 868
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Seattle
- Route
- MSP → SEA
- Departs
- 08:50
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 868, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 868 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 10 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 868's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 97 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.55%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 868 flies
DL 868 flies MSP to SEA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:50, used on 110 of 365 flights, with 09:00 (62 flights) and 09:05 (46 flights) next.
- Departs 08:50110 flights30.1%
- Departs 09:0062 flights17.0%
- Departs 09:0546 flights12.6%
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 08:50 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 868 runs 3 points better at 87.0%. 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 868 next to MSP to SEA
Every carrier on MSP to SEA combined arrived on time 80.9% of the time across 2,676 flights, so DL 868 is 6 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,745 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 80.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 6 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 868 | 365 | 87.0% | 68 min | 0.55% | A+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–SEA | 1,745 | 80.6% | 59 min | 0.86% | B+ |
| All carriers on MSP–SEA | 2,676 | 80.9% | 62 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 868 quarter by quarter
DL 868 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 100.0% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 75.0%, a swing of 25 points on roughly 73 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 flights100.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights81.5%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights75.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights94.4%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights95.2%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 868 ranged from 82.7% on Thursday to 92.3% on Wednesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 868 runs when it is late
The 47 late arrivals split 18 under half an hour, 16 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 13 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early80 flights22.1%
- Within 15 min235 flights64.9%
- 15–29 min late18 flights5.0%
- 30–59 min late16 flights4.4%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights2.2%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 362 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 36 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 11 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 22 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SEA.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 868
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 January 2026, 9 hours 18 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Four of the five worst days fell in January 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 January 2026 | 9 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 March 2026 | 6 hours 51 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 25 January 2026 | 3 hours 44 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 January 2026 | 3 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 January 2026 | 2 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 868 runs late
Carrier accounts for 64% of the 3,205 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 64%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 64%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,049 of the 3,205 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,205 delay minutes reported on DL 868.
Cancellations are rare at 0.55%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% 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.
The 1,399 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.
Every one of the 365 flights under DL 868 in the data flew MSP to SEA. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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 868
For a booking, DL 868 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 87.0% on time and 0.55% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to SEA, every carrier and departure
- SEA to MSP, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 881 on the same route73.2%
- Delta Air Lines 877 on the same route71.7%
- Alaska Airlines 387 on the same route83.6%
- Delta Air Lines 889 on the same route85.4%
- Alaska Airlines 555 on the same route77.3%
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) 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.