DL1261

DL1261 arrived on time 88.4% of the time, against 71.9% for all MIA → ATL flights, so this departure is 16.5 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 14.5 points better.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 785 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL1261 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 runs unusually far ahead of the MIA → ATL route as a whole, better than 99% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.

88.4% on time for this specific departure, against 71.9% for every MIA → ATL flight.

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.

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

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL1261 on MIA → ATL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

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

DL1261 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 9.4 hours on the ground at MIA, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.

When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL1261 pushed back an average of 10 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 5 minutes late.

Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into MIA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 652 of 778 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

DL1261 pushes back an average of 13.2 minutes late and reaches the gate at ATL an average of 7.4 minutes late. The 5.8 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 20.1 minutes on the taxiways at MIA is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.

On arrival at ATL, DL1261 spends 10.2 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 28,930 departures from MIA scheduled in the clock hour DL1261 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 DL1261’s own. More on taxi time.

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

DL1261 is scheduled out of MIA at 8:10 AM, in the 8 AM–9 AM bank. Departures from MIA in that hour arrive on time 87.8% of the time against 73.2% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 14.6 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.

The two airport figures cover every departure from MIA 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 DL1261 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. DL1261 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.

• DL1211 MIA→ATL Delta Air Lines on the same route, departs 7:00 AM, on time 91.0%
• DL1249 MIA→ATL Delta Air Lines on the same route, departs 6:00 AM, on time 92.2%
• F92483 MIA→ATL Frontier Airlines on the same route, departs 6:00 AM, on time 76.2%
• DL2021 MIA→SLC Delta Air Lines flight out of MIA, MIA to SLC, departs 6:40 PM, on time 73.8%