Flight number record
DL 973
Delta Air Lines · Boston to Atlanta
- Route
- BOS → ATL
- Departs
- 11:15
- Flights
- 360
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 973, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 973 lands a B, 2 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 about an hour on average. That rests on 360 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
79.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.50%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 360 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 973 flies
DL 973 flies BOS to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 11:15, used on 46 of 360 flights, with 10:15 (42 flights) and 11:12 (38 flights) next.
- Departs 11:1546 flights12.8%
- Departs 10:1542 flights11.7%
- Departs 11:1238 flights10.6%
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 11:15 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 973 runs level with that at 79.1%. 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 973 next to BOS to ATL
Every carrier on BOS to ATL combined arrived on time 76.8% of the time across 5,050 flights, so DL 973 is 2 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,726 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 80.8% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 973thin sample | 360 | 79.1% | 62 min | 2.50% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on BOS–ATL | 3,726 | 80.8% | 75 min | 1.85% | B |
| All carriers on BOS–ATL | 5,050 | 76.8% | 72 min | 2.24% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 973 quarter by quarter
DL 973 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 56.1%, a swing of 37 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 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights84.6%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights78.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.3%
- Jul–Sep 202657 flights56.1%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 973 did best on Wednesday at 88.5% on time and worst on Sunday at 66.0%. Each day rests on about 51 flights, so a gap of 23 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 973 runs when it is late
DL 973 often beats the schedule: 118 of 350 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 73 late arrivals split 25 under half an hour, 20 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 28 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early118 flights33.7%
- Within 15 min159 flights45.4%
- 15–29 min late25 flights7.1%
- 30–59 min late20 flights5.7%
- 1–2 hours late20 flights5.7%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 350 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 82 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 27 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 18 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 973
The latest arrival of the period was on 25 January 2026, 4 hours 38 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 25 January 2026 | 4 hours 38 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 12 July 2026 | 4 hours 27 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 July 2026 | 3 hours 21 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 December 2025 | 3 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 June 2026 | 2 hours 28 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 973 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 4,530 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,530 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 4,530 delay minutes reported on DL 973.
Cancellations run at 2.50%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
8.0% 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 946 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 360 flights under DL 973 in the data flew BOS 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. 360 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 973
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 973: 2.50% of its 360 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- BOS to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to BOS, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 695 on the same route86.0%
- Delta Air Lines 322 on the same route78.0%
- Delta Air Lines 456 on the same route89.4%
- Delta Air Lines 385 on the same route86.4%
- Delta Air Lines 923 on the same route87.2%
- Delta Air Lines 2464 on the same route74.9%
- Boston Logan International (BOS) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.