DL1204

DL1204 arrived on time 92.2% of the time, against 87.0% for all MCI → ATL flights, so this departure is 5.2 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 3.5 points better.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 761 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL1204 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.

This flight stays close to typical even on its worst days, a smaller gap than 94% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.

A typical arrival is 9 min early, and the worst tenth are only 20 minutes worse than that.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.

DL1204 has cancelled 2.23% of its scheduled departures (17 of 761), against 1.08% for all MCI → ATL flights — this specific departure cancels 1.1 percentage points more often than the route as a whole. Different flight numbers on the same route can carry different aircraft, crews and schedules, so this is a fact about DL1204 specifically, not about the route it flies.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL1204 on MCI → ATL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – July 2026

When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL1204 pushed back an average of 7 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 1 minute early.

Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into MCI just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 710 of 744 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.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – July 2026

DL1204 pushes back an average of 2.4 minutes late and reaches the gate at ATL an average of 2.4 minutes early. The 4.8 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. Its 16.1 minutes on the taxiways at MCI is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.

On arrival at ATL, DL1204 spends 9.8 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 ATL 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 ATL. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 10,747 departures from MCI scheduled in the clock hour DL1204 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at ATL (1,012,161 flights), not just DL1204’s own. More on taxi time.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026

DL1204 is scheduled out of MCI at 5:45 AM, in the 5 AM–6 AM bank. Departures from MCI in that hour arrive on time 90.2% of the time against 81.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 9.2 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.

The two airport figures cover every departure from MCI 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.

Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL1204 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – July 2026

Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL1204 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.

• DL1212 MCI→ATL Delta Air Lines on the same route, departs 7:00 AM, on time 92.9%
• DL2471 ATL→MCI Return trip, ATL to MCI, departs 8:20 AM, on time 90.4%
• DL2908 ATL→MCI Return trip, ATL to MCI, departs 10:05 AM, on time 86.6%
• DL2761 DTW→MCI Delta Air Lines flight into MCI, DTW to MCI, departs 3:55 PM, on time 84.4%