Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL2609
Detroit (DTW) to Newark (EWR) · scheduled 9:30 PM – 11:13 PM
How DL2609 performs
899 operations, January 2024 – July 2026.
DL2609 arrived on time 70.4% of the time, against 78.5% for all DTW → EWR flights, so this departure is 8.1 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 5.1 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 899 operations, January 2024 – July 2026 · If DL2609 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How DL2609 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight's worst arrivals run unusually far past its typical one, a bigger gap than 91% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
A typical arrival is 6 min early, but the worst tenth run 95 minutes worse than that.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · January 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.
Where DL2609 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL2609 | 70.4% | 2.22% | -6 min | 15.3% | 899 |
| Delta Air Lines on DTW → EWR | 75.5% | 2.03% | -7 min | 11.7% | 4,878 |
| All DTW → EWR flights | 78.5% | 3.50% | -10 min | 10.1% | 10,363 |
DL2609 has cancelled 2.22% of its scheduled departures (20 of 899), against 3.50% for all DTW → EWR flights — this specific departure cancels 1.3 percentage points less 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 DL2609 specifically, not about the route it flies.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · January 2024 – July 2026
Why DL2609 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s 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 DL2609 on DTW → EWR. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering January 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies DL2609 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL2609 pushed back an average of 60 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 12 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into DTW just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 849 of 881 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL2609 | 19% | 65% | 20% |
| 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 DL2609’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL2609 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 January 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves DTW late, does that still matter by the time it reaches EWR?
DL2609 pushes back an average of 25.2 minutes late and reaches the gate at EWR an average of 18.9 minutes late. The 6.2 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 18.0 minutes on the taxiways at DTW is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at EWR, DL2609 spends 8.2 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 1.9 minutes shorter 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 35,035 departures from DTW scheduled in the clock hour DL2609 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 DL2609’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · January 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves DTW
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL2609 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 35,035 departures from DTW are scheduled in the 9 PM–10 PM hour over the period, against 388,632 across the whole day.
DL2609 is scheduled out of DTW at 9:30 PM, in the 9 PM–10 PM bank. Departures from DTW in that hour arrive on time 78.1% of the time against 79.6% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour DL2609 leaves in is an ordinary one for DTW and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from DTW 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 · January 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does DL2609 run worse on particular days?
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Wednesday the least, a gap of 10.8 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · January 2024 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes DL2609 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| LAX→SLC Los Angeles to Salt Lake City | July 1, 2023 – June 6, 2024 | 222 | 96.8% |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL2609 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.
89 min late
against a median of 6 min early
DL2609 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 6 min early, but the worst tenth are 95 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 899 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering January 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL2566 | Delta Air Lines | 87.8% | 9 min early | 810 |
| DL2577 | Delta Air Lines | 80.0% | 9 min early | 900 |
| DL2609 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 70.4% | 6 min early | 899 |
| DL2573 | Delta Air Lines | 66.2% | 0 min early | 745 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL2609 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 899 records of DL2609 operating DTW → 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
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