Flight number record
DL 944
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Seattle
- Route
- DTW → SEA
- Departs
- 16:46
- Flights
- 327
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 944, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 944 draws a C+. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about 45 minutes behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 327 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 944 runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 100 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 327 completed flights
Avg delay
45 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 327 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Schedule
When DL 944 flies
DL 944 flies DTW to SEA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:46, used on 57 of 327 flights, with 16:25 (50 flights) and 16:32 (38 flights) next.
- Departs 16:4657 flights17.4%
- Departs 16:2550 flights15.3%
- Departs 16:3238 flights11.6%
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 16:46 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 944 runs 5 points worse at 67.3%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
DL 944 next to DTW to SEA
Every carrier on DTW to SEA combined arrived on time 72.8% of the time across 2,067 flights, so DL 944 is 6 points behind it. Delta flew 1,518 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 71.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 14 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 944thin sample | 327 | 67.3% | 45 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on DTW–SEA | 1,518 | 71.3% | 57 min | 0.79% | C+ |
| All carriers on DTW–SEA | 2,067 | 72.8% | 56 min | 0.68% | C+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 944 quarter by quarter
DL 944 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 38.5%, a swing of 62 points on roughly 65 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 flights68.5%
- Jan–Mar 202652 flights38.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights70.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights69.4%
Scale runs 30% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 944 did best on Tuesday at 78.3% on time and worst on Sunday at 55.3%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 23 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 944 runs when it is late
The 107 late arrivals split 42 under half an hour, 45 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early64 flights19.6%
- Within 15 min156 flights47.7%
- 15–29 min late42 flights12.8%
- 30–59 min late45 flights13.8%
- 1–2 hours late13 flights4.0%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 327 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 68 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 7 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 46 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 944
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 March 2026, 3 hours 45 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 13 March 2026 | 3 hours 45 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 3 January 2026 | 2 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 August 2026 | 2 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 June 2026 | 2 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 December 2025 | 2 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 944 runs late
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 4,861 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 38%National Airspace System
- 10%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,466 of the 4,861 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,861 delay minutes reported on DL 944.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
6.1% 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 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,927 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.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including DCA to SEA (38), but none flew often enough under DL 944 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to DTW to SEA only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 327 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 944
For a booking, DL 944 is one of the weaker ways to fly DTW to SEA: 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
- DTW to SEA, every carrier and departure
- SEA to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 734 on the same route73.9%
- Delta Air Lines 728 on the same route76.7%
- Delta Air Lines 565 on the same route61.6%
- Alaska Airlines 313 on the same route75.1%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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.