Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL1609
Minneapolis (MSP) to St. Louis (STL) · scheduled 9:50 PM – 11:23 PM
How DL1609 performs
783 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL1609 arrived on time 75.8% of the time, against 82.0% for all MSP → STL flights, so this departure is 6.2 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 6.7 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 783 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL1609 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL1609 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL1609 | 75.8% | 1.02% | -7 min | 8.5% | 783 |
| Delta Air Lines on MSP → STL | 82.5% | 0.88% | -10 min | 6.2% | 3,313 |
| All MSP → STL flights | 82.0% | 0.77% | -9 min | 6.0% | 5,983 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL1609 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL1609 on MSP → STL. 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 DL1609 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL1609 pushed back an average of 37 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 4 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into MSP just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 600 of 775 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 | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL1609 | 22% | 63% | 16% |
| Network, same turn | 17% | 68% | 9% |
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 60 to 89 minutes. How often DL1609’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL1609 left 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s.
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 MSP late, does that still matter by the time it reaches STL?
DL1609 pushes back an average of 11.6 minutes late and reaches the gate at STL an average of 7.5 minutes late. The 4.0 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 17.9 minutes on the taxiways at MSP, 1.0 minutes longer than a typical MSP departure in the same hour.
On arrival at STL, DL1609 spends 7.1 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 1.2 minutes longer than a typical STL arrival (5.9 min).
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 STL. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 20,966 departures from MSP scheduled in the clock hour DL1609 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at STL (198,659 flights), not just DL1609’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves MSP
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL1609 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 20,966 departures from MSP are scheduled in the 9 PM–10 PM hour over the period, against 369,781 across the whole day.
DL1609 is scheduled out of MSP at 9:50 PM, in the 9 PM–10 PM bank. Departures from MSP in that hour arrive on time 77.8% of the time against 81.1% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 3.4 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from MSP 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 DL1609 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| MDT→ATL Harrisburg to Atlanta | May 7, 2024 – June 6, 2024 | 31 | — |
| MIA→SLC Miami to Salt Lake City | April 9, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 28 | — |
| TLH→ATL Tallahassee to Atlanta | July 1, 2023 – April 8, 2024 | 221 | 94.5% |
| MSP→ORD Minneapolis to Chicago | January 8, 2024 – March 8, 2024 | 46 | — |
| ORD→MSP Chicago to Minneapolis | January 19, 2024 – March 8, 2024 | 20 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL1609 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.
53 min late
against a median of 7 min early
DL1609 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 7 min early, but the worst tenth are 60 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 783 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 783 records of DL1609 operating MSP → STL, 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
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