Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL2561
New York (LGA) to Orlando (MCO) · scheduled 5:59 PM – 9:06 PM
How DL2561 performs
782 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL2561 arrived on time 65.3% of the time, against 73.0% for all LGA → MCO flights, so this departure is 7.7 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 8.9 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 782 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL2561 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL2561 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL2561 | 65.3% | 3.58% | -2 min | 16.8% | 782 |
| Delta Air Lines on LGA → MCO | 74.2% | 2.74% | -6 min | 10.8% | 6,495 |
| All LGA → MCO flights | 73.0% | 2.85% | -7 min | 12.2% | 15,987 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL2561 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
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 DL2561 on LGA → MCO. 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 DL2561 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL2561 pushed back an average of 67 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 LGA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 723 of 756 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL2561 | 26% | 89% | 14% |
| 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 DL2561’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL2561 left 15 or more minutes late is higher 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 LGA late, does that still matter by the time it reaches MCO?
DL2561 pushes back an average of 25.7 minutes late and reaches the gate at MCO an average of 18.3 minutes late. The 7.4 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 25.9 minutes on the taxiways at LGA is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at MCO, DL2561 spends 11.7 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 MCO 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 MCO. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 29,634 departures from LGA scheduled in the clock hour DL2561 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at MCO (498,229 flights), not just DL2561’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves LGA
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL2561 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 29,634 departures from LGA are scheduled in the 5 PM–6 PM hour over the period, against 456,467 across the whole day.
DL2561 is scheduled out of LGA at 5:59 PM, in the 5 PM–6 PM bank. Departures from LGA in that hour arrive on time 70.2% of the time against 78.3% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.1 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from LGA 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 DL2561 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→GPT Atlanta to Gulfport | July 10, 2023 – June 6, 2024 | 99 | 83.3% |
| GPT→ATL Gulfport to Atlanta | July 10, 2023 – June 6, 2024 | 99 | 85.3% |
| MCI→MSP Kansas City to Minneapolis | April 9, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 28 | — |
| MSP→MCI Minneapolis to Kansas City | April 9, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 28 | — |
| LGA→DTW New York to Detroit | January 8, 2024 – April 8, 2024 | 92 | 84.8% |
| DEN→ATL Denver to Atlanta | December 7, 2023 – January 7, 2024 | 32 | — |
| CHS→MSP Charleston to Minneapolis | November 8, 2023 – December 6, 2023 | 12 | — |
| MSP→CHS Minneapolis to Charleston | November 8, 2023 – December 6, 2023 | 12 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL2561 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.
87 min late
against a median of 2 min early
DL2561 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 2 min early, but the worst tenth are 89 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 782 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NK1350 | Spirit Airlines | 95.1% | 22 min early | 609 |
| B6299 | JetBlue | 86.6% | 10 min early | 845 |
| B6599 | JetBlue | 84.6% | 10 min early | 713 |
| DL2561 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 65.3% | 2 min early | 782 |
| B6399 | JetBlue | 63.1% | 2 min late | 676 |
| B6499 | JetBlue | 61.4% | 2 min late | 966 |
| DL2520 | Delta Air Lines | 58.9% | 5 min late | 782 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL2561 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 782 records of DL2561 operating LGA → MCO, 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