Carrier route record
DLEWR→SLC
Delta Air Lines · Newark to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 723
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on EWR to SLC lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 723 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on EWR to SLC from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 705 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.35%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.9%
Every carrier on EWR to SLC, 1,338 flights
These figures cover 723 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on EWR to SLC
Delta flew 723 of the 1,338 flights on EWR to SLC, most of the route. Its 76.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 77.0% to Delta at 76.7%.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 615 | 77.0% | 62 min | 2.11% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 723 | 76.7% | 89 min | 2.35% | B |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on EWR to SLC
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.
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 723 flights.
- 5am–8am365 flights79.3%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm17 flights—
- 5pm–8pm341 flights74.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 79.3% on time for the 5am–8am window against 74.1% for 5pm–8pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on EWR to SLC through the year
December is the weak month at 63.2% on time, against 90.0% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 79.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 68.4%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on EWR to SLC runs when it is late
Delta on EWR to SLC often beats the schedule: 182 of 705 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 164 late arrivals split 54 under half an hour, 42 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 68 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early182 flights25.8%
- Within 15 min359 flights50.9%
- 15–29 min late54 flights7.7%
- 30–59 min late42 flights6.0%
- 1–2 hours late32 flights4.5%
- 2+ hours late36 flights5.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 705 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
33 of 136 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 61 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 SLC.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on EWR to SLC
The latest arrival of the period was on 27 August 2026, 17 hours 43 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in November 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 27 August 2026 | 17 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 November 2025 | 6 hours 2 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 November 2025 | 5 hours 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 October 2025 | 5 hours 24 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 November 2025 | 5 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 15,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,101 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 14,539 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.35% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 1,969 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 return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.6% on time across 723 flights, 5 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 723 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 Delta on EWR to SLC
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 723 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 76.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 705 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to SLC, every carrier
- Delta on SLC to EWR, the return leg
- United Airlines on EWR to SLC77.0%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.