Flight number record
DL 987
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Boston
- Route
- ATL → BOS
- Departs
- 07:25
- Flights
- 344
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 987, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 987 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 13 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 344 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 987's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 126 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 336 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.33%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 344 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 987 flies
DL 987 flies ATL to BOS without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:25, used on 87 of 344 flights, with 07:00 (77 flights) and 07:10 (61 flights) next.
- Departs 07:2587 flights25.3%
- Departs 07:0077 flights22.4%
- Departs 07:1061 flights17.7%
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 07:25 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 987 runs level with that at 89.9%. 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 987 next to ATL to BOS
Every carrier on ATL to BOS combined arrived on time 72.8% of the time across 5,054 flights, so DL 987 is 17 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,731 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 987thin sample | 344 | 89.9% | 47 min | 2.33% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–BOS | 3,731 | 74.4% | 61 min | 1.82% | C |
| All carriers on ATL–BOS | 5,054 | 72.8% | 66 min | 2.30% | C |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 987 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 987 held fairly steady: 88.8% in Oct–Dec 2025, 86.9% in Jan–Mar 2026, 91.2% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 91.8% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 5 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202520 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202581 flights88.8%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights86.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights91.2%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights91.8%
Scale runs 80% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 987 ranged from 83.7% on Sunday to 95.0% on Saturday. With about 49 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 987 runs when it is late
DL 987 often beats the schedule: 104 of 336 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 34 late arrivals split 16 under half an hour, 10 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 8 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early104 flights31.0%
- Within 15 min198 flights58.9%
- 15–29 min late16 flights4.8%
- 30–59 min late10 flights3.0%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.8%
- 2+ hours late2 flights0.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 336 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 34 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 12 still arrived on time. 12 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 987
The latest arrival of the period was on 17 September 2025, 3 hours 10 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 17 September 2025 | 3 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 June 2026 | 2 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 October 2025 | 1 hour 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 June 2026 | 1 hour 21 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 January 2026 | 1 hour 19 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 987 runs late
Carrier accounts for 66% of the 1,582 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 66%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 5%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 66%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,041 of the 1,582 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,582 delay minutes reported on DL 987.
Cancellations sit at 2.33% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.4% 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 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 344 flights under DL 987 in the data flew ATL to BOS. 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. 344 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 987
For a booking, read DL 987 as 89.9% on time with 2.33% cancelled over 344 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to BOS, every carrier and departure
- BOS to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 855 on the same route85.2%
- Delta Air Lines 865 on the same route80.2%
- Delta Air Lines 726 on the same route66.3%
- Delta Air Lines 821 on the same route69.2%
- Delta Air Lines 350 on the same route74.6%
- Delta Air Lines 2595 on the same route62.5%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) 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.