Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL1038
Raleigh–Durham (RDU) to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) · scheduled 12:20 PM – 2:25 PM
How DL1038 performs
783 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL1038 arrived on time 79.1% of the time, against 77.8% for all RDU → FLL flights, so this departure is 1.3 percentage points better than the route as a whole.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 783 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL1038 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL1038 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL1038 | 79.1% | 0.89% | -7 min | 7.4% | 783 |
| Delta Air Lines on RDU → FLL | 79.8% | 0.62% | -7 min | 7.1% | 1,124 |
| All RDU → FLL flights | 77.8% | 1.48% | -6 min | 8.1% | 4,262 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL1038 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL1038 on RDU → FLL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies DL1038 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying DL1038 came in 15 or more minutes late on 9% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into RDU just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 750 of 776 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late |
|---|---|
| DL1038 | 9% |
| Network, same turn | 18% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 45 to 59 minutes. How often DL1038’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves RDU late, does that still matter by the time it reaches FLL?
DL1038 pushes back an average of 10.2 minutes late and reaches the gate at FLL an average of 7.9 minutes late. The 2.3 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 15.2 minutes on the taxiways at RDU, 2.3 minutes shorter than a typical RDU departure in the same hour.
On arrival at FLL, DL1038 spends 8.1 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is about what any arrival at FLL spends on the ground before reaching the gate.
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached FLL. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 11,497 departures from RDU scheduled in the clock hour DL1038 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at FLL (278,720 flights), not just DL1038’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves RDU
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL1038 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 11,497 departures from RDU are scheduled in the 12 PM–1 PM hour over the period, against 179,935 across the whole day.
DL1038 is scheduled out of RDU at 12:20 PM, in the 12 PM–1 PM bank. Departures from RDU in that hour arrive on time 79.5% of the time against 79.4% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour DL1038 leaves in is an ordinary one for RDU and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from RDU to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes DL1038 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| SLC→IDA Salt Lake City to Idaho Falls | November 28, 2024 | 1 | — |
| ATL→HPN Atlanta to White Plains | May 7, 2024 – June 6, 2024 | 31 | — |
| HPN→ATL White Plains to Atlanta | May 7, 2024 – June 6, 2024 | 31 | — |
| JFK→SAN New York to San Diego | April 9, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 28 | — |
| ATL→TUS Atlanta to Tucson | March 10, 2024 – April 8, 2024 | 30 | — |
| TUS→ATL Tucson to Atlanta | March 10, 2024 – April 8, 2024 | 30 | — |
| ATL→CLE Atlanta to Cleveland | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 61 | — |
| CLE→ATL Cleveland to Atlanta | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 61 | — |
| ORD→ATL Chicago to Atlanta | September 9, 2023 – January 7, 2024 | 117 | 93.2% |
| ATL→ORD Atlanta to Chicago | September 9, 2023 – January 7, 2024 | 115 | 91.3% |
| TPA→BOS Tampa to Boston | September 5–8, 2023 | 4 | — |
| ATL→TVC Atlanta to Traverse City | July 15, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 8 | — |
| TVC→ATL Traverse City to Atlanta | July 15, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 8 | — |
| ATL→CLT Atlanta to Charlotte | September 2–3, 2023 | 2 | — |
| DTW→SFO Detroit to San Francisco | July 10–31, 2023 | 13 | — |
| LAX→BOS Los Angeles to Boston | July 1–8, 2023 | 2 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL1038 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
45 min late
against a median of 7 min early
Percentiles over 783 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B62625 | JetBlue | 86.9% | 10 min early | 1,125 |
| DL1038 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 79.1% | 7 min early | 783 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL1038 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 783 records of DL1038 operating RDU → FLL, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed