Flight number record
DL 885
Delta Air Lines · Salt Lake City to Atlanta
- Route
- SLC → ATL
- Departs
- 11:00
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 885, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 885 lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
80.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Schedule
When DL 885 flies
DL 885 flies SLC to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 11:00, used on 168 of 365 flights, with 11:35 (41 flights) next.
- Departs 11:00168 flights46.0%
- Departs 11:3541 flights11.2%
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 11:00 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 885 runs 2 points better at 80.6%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Against the route
DL 885 next to SLC to ATL
Every carrier on SLC to ATL combined arrived on time 86.4% of the time across 2,974 flights, so DL 885 is 6 points behind it. Delta flew 2,968 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 86.5% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 885 | 365 | 80.6% | 71 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on SLC–ATL | 2,968 | 86.5% | 65 min | 0.57% | A+ |
| All carriers on SLC–ATL | 2,974 | 86.4% | 67 min | 0.57% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 885 quarter by quarter
DL 885 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 90.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 70.0%, a swing of 20 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 202592 flights80.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights84.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights81.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights70.0%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 885 did best on Wednesday at 90.2% on time and worst on Sunday at 70.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 885 runs when it is late
The 70 late arrivals split 28 under half an hour, 22 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early63 flights17.5%
- Within 15 min227 flights63.1%
- 15–29 min late28 flights7.8%
- 30–59 min late22 flights6.1%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights2.8%
- 2+ hours late10 flights2.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 360 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 61 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. In the other direction, 24 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 ATL.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 885
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 November 2025, 9 hours 4 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 November 2025 | 9 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 September 2025 | 6 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 August 2026 | 5 hours 39 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 February 2026 | 5 hours 7 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 11 January 2026 | 3 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 885 runs late
Carrier accounts for 60% of the 4,965 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Carrier
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,981 of the 4,965 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,965 delay minutes reported on DL 885.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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
5.6% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,590 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
Every one of the 365 flights under DL 885 in the data flew SLC to ATL. 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 885
For a booking, DL 885 is one of the weaker ways to fly SLC to ATL: 6 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
- SLC to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to SLC, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 906 on the same route84.1%
- Delta Air Lines 907 on the same route94.8%
- Delta Air Lines 897 on the same route92.0%
- Delta Air Lines 912 on the same route87.0%
- Delta Air Lines 905 on the same route84.8%
- Delta Air Lines 835 on the same route83.6%
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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.