Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL2838
Cleveland (CLE) to Atlanta (ATL) · scheduled 7:05 AM – 8:55 AM
How DL2838 performs
1,047 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
DL2838 arrived on time 89.2% of the time, against 83.8% for all CLE → ATL flights, so this departure is 5.4 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 1.3 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,047 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If DL2838 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL2838 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL2838 | 89.2% | 1.05% | -10 min | 4.6% | 1,047 |
| Delta Air Lines on CLE → ATL | 87.9% | 1.27% | -12 min | 4.4% | 7,786 |
| All CLE → ATL flights | 83.8% | 1.37% | -11 min | 5.8% | 10,101 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why DL2838 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
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL2838 on CLE → ATL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies DL2838 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
DL2838 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 8.9 hours on the ground at CLE, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL2838 pushed back an average of 8 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 3 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into CLE just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 957 of 1,036 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL2838 | 24% | 13% | 7% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often DL2838’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL2838 left 15 or more minutes late is about the same as 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 July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves CLE late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ATL?
DL2838 pushes back an average of 4.9 minutes late and reaches the gate at ATL an average of 1.4 minutes early. The 6.3 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 16.1 minutes on the taxiways at CLE is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at ATL, DL2838 spends 10.6 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 1.0 minutes longer than a typical ATL arrival (9.6 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 ATL. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 12,153 departures from CLE scheduled in the clock hour DL2838 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 DL2838’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves CLE
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL2838 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 12,153 departures from CLE are scheduled in the 7 AM–8 AM hour over the period, against 126,883 across the whole day.
DL2838 is scheduled out of CLE at 7:05 AM, in the 7 AM–8 AM bank. Departures from CLE in that hour arrive on time 87.7% of the time against 80.9% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 6.8 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from CLE 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 · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does DL2838 run worse on particular days?
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 8.0 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
16 min late
against a median of 10 min early
Percentiles over 1,047 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL2734 | Delta Air Lines | 92.7% | 15 min early | 1,082 |
| DL2838 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 89.2% | 10 min early | 1,047 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL2838 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 1,047 records of DL2838 operating CLE → ATL, 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