Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL2856
Detroit (DTW) to Atlanta (ATL) · scheduled 10:35 AM – 12:44 PM
How DL2856 performs
1,032 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
DL2856 arrived on time 86.7% of the time, against 80.5% for all DTW → ATL flights, so this departure is 6.2 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 3.6 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,032 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If DL2856 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL2856 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL2856 | 86.7% | 0.39% | -10 min | 5.8% | 1,032 |
| Delta Air Lines on DTW → ATL | 83.1% | 0.48% | -8 min | 6.0% | 11,370 |
| All DTW → ATL flights | 80.5% | 0.81% | -8 min | 6.9% | 15,413 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why DL2856 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 DL2856 on DTW → 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 DL2856 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying DL2856 came in 15 or more minutes late on 13% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into DTW just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 937 of 1,028 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 |
|---|---|
| DL2856 | 13% |
| Network, same turn | 17% |
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 DL2856’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
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 DTW late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ATL?
DL2856 pushes back an average of 11.9 minutes late and reaches the gate at ATL an average of 2.1 minutes late. The 9.9 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 16.4 minutes on the taxiways at DTW, 2.5 minutes shorter than a typical DTW departure in the same hour.
On arrival at ATL, DL2856 spends 6.9 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 2.7 minutes shorter 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 40,398 departures from DTW scheduled in the clock hour DL2856 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 DL2856’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves DTW
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL2856 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 40,398 departures from DTW are scheduled in the 10 AM–11 AM hour over the period, against 388,632 across the whole day.
DL2856 is scheduled out of DTW at 10:35 AM, in the 10 AM–11 AM bank. Departures from DTW in that hour arrive on time 83.5% of the time against 79.6% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 3.9 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
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 · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does DL2856 run worse on particular days?
Thursday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 6.2 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes DL2856 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→PHL Atlanta to Philadelphia | January 15, 2024 – March 8, 2024 | 29 | — |
| SLC→MSP Salt Lake City to Minneapolis | December 16, 2023 – January 7, 2024 | 23 | — |
| CLE→DTW Cleveland to Detroit | October 28, 2023 | 1 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL2856 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.
26 min late
against a median of 10 min early
Percentiles over 1,032 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL2375 | Delta Air Lines | 92.6% | 11 min early | 1,057 |
| DL1611 | Delta Air Lines | 88.0% | 9 min early | 1,033 |
| DL2856 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 86.7% | 10 min early | 1,032 |
| DL965 | Delta Air Lines | 86.2% | 9 min early | 693 |
| DL1228 | Delta Air Lines | 83.2% | 7 min early | 721 |
| DL2188 | Delta Air Lines | 78.7% | 4 min early | 902 |
| DL1653 | Delta Air Lines | 78.2% | 8 min early | 689 |
| DL1467 | Delta Air Lines | 77.8% | 5 min early | 1,040 |
| DL2053 | Delta Air Lines | 74.8% | 5 min early | 977 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL2856 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 1,032 records of DL2856 operating DTW → 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