Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL2038
Salt Lake City (SLC) to Newark (EWR) · scheduled 11:59 PM – 6:00 AM
How DL2038 performs
734 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL2038 arrived on time 79.2% of the time, against 76.2% for all SLC → EWR flights, so this departure is 3.0 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 3.4 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 734 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL2038 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL2038 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL2038 | 79.2% | 2.72% | -3 min | 3.6% | 734 |
| Delta Air Lines on SLC → EWR | 75.8% | 1.83% | -2 min | 7.3% | 2,189 |
| All SLC → EWR flights | 76.2% | 1.77% | -5 min | 8.0% | 3,946 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL2038 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL2038 on SLC → EWR. 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 DL2038 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL2038 pushed back an average of 27 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 1 minute late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SLC just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 675 of 714 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL2038 | 18% | 33% | 11% |
| Network, same turn | 23% | 40% | 9% |
The schedule leaves a long gap on the ground, which gives a late aircraft room to catch up before this flight pushes back.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 90 minutes to 3 hours. How often DL2038’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL2038 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 SLC late, does that still matter by the time it reaches EWR?
DL2038 pushes back an average of 6.3 minutes late and reaches the gate at EWR an average of 3.8 minutes late. The 2.5 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 16.6 minutes on the taxiways at SLC is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at EWR, DL2038 spends 14.9 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 4.8 minutes longer than a typical EWR arrival (10.1 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 EWR. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 17,470 departures from SLC scheduled in the clock hour DL2038 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at EWR (387,854 flights), not just DL2038’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SLC
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL2038 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 17,470 departures from SLC are scheduled in the 11 PM–12 AM hour over the period, against 355,300 across the whole day.
DL2038 is scheduled out of SLC at 11:59 PM, in the 11 PM–12 AM bank. Departures from SLC in that hour arrive on time 83.1% of the time against 84.0% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour DL2038 leaves in is an ordinary one for SLC and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SLC 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 DL2038 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ATL→TLH Atlanta to Tallahassee | July 4–5, 2024 | 2 | — |
| TLH→ATL Tallahassee to Atlanta | July 4–5, 2024 | 2 | — |
| MKE→ATL Milwaukee to Atlanta | July 1, 2023 – June 6, 2024 | 252 | 91.2% |
| MCI→SEA Kansas City to Seattle | April 9, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 28 | — |
| SLC→BZN Salt Lake City to Bozeman | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 62 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL2038 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.
29 min late
against a median of 3 min early
Percentiles over 734 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 734 records of DL2038 operating SLC → EWR, 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