Flight number record
DL 881
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Seattle
- Route
- MSP → SEA
- Departs
- 18:50
- Flights
- 352
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 352 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 881 runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 346 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.14%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
8.4%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 352 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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 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 352 flights, with 18:51 (60 flights) and 18:25 (57 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 18:5062 flights17.6%
- Departs 18:5160 flights17.0%
- Departs 18:2557 flights16.2%
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 18:50 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 881 runs 5 points better at 73.1%. 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 881 next to MSP to SEA
Every carrier on MSP to SEA combined arrived on time 81.1% of the time across 2,690 flights, so DL 881 is 8 points behind it. Delta flew 1,737 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 82.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 881thin sample | 352 | 73.1% | 60 min | 1.14% | C |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–SEA | 1,737 | 82.1% | 60 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| All carriers on MSP–SEA | 2,690 | 81.1% | 58 min | 1.04% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | 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 91.2% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 57.5%, a swing of 34 points on roughly 88 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 flights91.2%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights73.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights57.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights71.9%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 881 ranged from 67.4% on Wednesday to 76.6% on Tuesday. With about 50 flights behind each day, a spread of 9 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Delay causes
Why DL 881 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 51% of the 5,536 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.
- 51%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, 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 2,832 of the 5,536 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,536 delay minutes reported on DL 881.
Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.57%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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 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. 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.
Every one of the 352 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. 352 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 route86.7%
- Delta Air Lines 877 on the same route75.9%
- Alaska Airlines 387 on the same route84.2%
- Delta Air Lines 889 on the same route87.2%
- Alaska Airlines 555 on the same route75.2%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.