Flight number record

DL 961

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Dallas-Fort Worth

Route: ATL → DFW
Departs: 08:56
Flights: 358
Period: September 2025 to August 2026

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 961, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 961 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 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 358 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 961's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 105 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

87.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 345 completed flights

Avg delay

46 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.35%

National rate is 1.89%

1 hour+ late

2.9%

National rate is 8.3%

These figures cover 358 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 961 flies

DL 961 flies ATL to DFW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:56, used on 59 of 358 flights, with 08:55 (57 flights) and 09:09 (36 flights) next.

Departs 08:5659 flights16.5%
Departs 08:5557 flights15.9%
Departs 09:0936 flights10.1%

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 08:56 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 961 runs 4 points better at 87.8%. 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 961 next to ATL to DFW

Every carrier on ATL to DFW combined arrived on time 73.9% of the time across 6,672 flights, so DL 961 is 14 points ahead of it. Delta flew 2,784 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.0% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 7 points.

DL 961 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 961thin sample	358	87.8%	46 min	3.35%	A−
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–DFW	2,784	76.0%	60 min	2.55%	B
All carriers on ATL–DFW	6,672	73.9%	82 min	2.50%	C
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,039,517	81.1%	71 min	1.74%	B

Across the year

DL 961 quarter by quarter

DL 961 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 94.8% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 83.1%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 72 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 202590 flights83.7%
Jan–Mar 202689 flights91.5%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights83.1%
Jul–Sep 202658 flights94.8%

Scale runs 75% to 100%.

By weekday, DL 961 ranged from 82.7% on Tuesday to 90.0% on Thursday. With about 51 flights behind each day, a spread of 7 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Arrival by arrival

How late DL 961 runs when it is late

Most of the lateness is short. 22 of the 42 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 10 reached an hour or more.

15+ min early80 flights23.2%
Within 15 min223 flights64.6%
15–29 min late22 flights6.4%
30–59 min late10 flights2.9%
1–2 hours late8 flights2.3%
2+ hours late2 flights0.6%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 345 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 36 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 13 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 19 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 DFW.

The worst days

Worst days for DL 961

The latest arrival of the period was on 24 November 2025, 4 hours 24 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of DL 961 in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
24 November 2025	4 hours 24 minutes	National Airspace System
5 January 2026	2 hours	Carrier
21 March 2026	1 hour 49 minutes	Carrier
7 December 2025	1 hour 37 minutes	National Airspace System
20 November 2025	1 hour 36 minutes	National Airspace System

Delay causes

Why DL 961 runs late

National Airspace System accounts for 51% of the 1,936 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

National Airspace System
51%
Carrier
33%
Late-arriving aircraft
13%
Extreme weather
3%

51% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 995 minutes out of 1,936, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 1,936 delay minutes reported on DL 961.

Cancellations run at 3.35%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.9% 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 731 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.

DL 961 is not only a ATL to DFW flight. It also flew DFW to ATL (345 flights, 85.4% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 358 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.

Other routes flown as DL 961
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DFW to ATLthin sample	345	85.4%	48 min	2.90%	A

What to do with this

Booking DL 961

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 961: 3.35% of its 358 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs roughly 45 minutes, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

Where to go next

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 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures