Flight number record
DL 881
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Seattle
- Route
- MSP → SEA
- Departs
- 18:50
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 881, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 881 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 881 runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 41 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 881 flies
DL 881 flies MSP to SEA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:50, used on 62 of 364 flights, with 18:51 (60 flights) and 18:55 (41 flights) next.
- Departs 18:5062 flights17.0%
- Departs 18:5160 flights16.5%
- Departs 18:5541 flights11.3%
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 18:50 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 881 runs 5 points better at 73.2%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
DL 881 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 881 is 8 points behind 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 trails by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 881thin sample | 364 | 73.2% | 61 min | 1.10% | C |
| 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 881 quarter by quarter
DL 881 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 57.5%, a swing of 33 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 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights73.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights57.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights71.9%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights88.7%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 881 ranged from 68.0% on Sunday to 78.8% on Tuesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 881 runs when it is late
DL 881 often beats the schedule: 96 of 358 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 96 late arrivals split 40 under half an hour, 26 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 30 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early96 flights26.8%
- Within 15 min166 flights46.4%
- 15–29 min late40 flights11.2%
- 30–59 min late26 flights7.3%
- 1–2 hours late17 flights4.7%
- 2+ hours late13 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 358 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
20 of 88 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. In the other direction, 28 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 881
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 December 2025, 6 hours 24 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 December 2025 | 6 hours 24 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 May 2026 | 4 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 March 2026 | 4 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 August 2026 | 3 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 January 2026 | 2 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 881 runs late
Carrier accounts for 49% of the 5,830 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,872 of the 5,830 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,830 delay minutes reported on DL 881.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.4% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 364 flights under DL 881 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. 364 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 881
For a booking, DL 881 is one of the weaker ways to fly MSP to SEA: 8 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to SEA, every carrier and departure
- SEA to MSP, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 868 on the same route87.0%
- 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
- 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.