Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL3128
Atlanta (ATL) to New Orleans (MSY) · scheduled 8:30 AM – 9:04 AM
How DL3128 performs
726 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL3128 arrived on time 90.6% of the time, against 78.0% for all ATL → MSY flights, so this departure is 12.6 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 11.3 points better.
DL3128’s scheduled departure has moved during the period FlyerIntel has on file: it typically left around 8:30 AM earlier on, and around 7:30 AM more recently — a 60-minute shift, not the few minutes of day-to-day rounding every published schedule carries. Confirm the current departure time before booking around an older listing.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 726 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL3128 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 DL3128 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far ahead of the ATL → MSY route as a whole, better than 95% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
90.6% on time for this specific departure, against 78.0% for every ATL → MSY flight.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 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 DL3128 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL3128 | 90.6% | 3.03% | -9 min | 3.1% | 726 |
| Delta Air Lines on ATL → MSY | 79.3% | 1.36% | -4 min | 6.3% | 9,883 |
| All ATL → MSY flights | 78.0% | 1.25% | -4 min | 6.9% | 13,479 |
DL3128 has cancelled 3.03% of its scheduled departures (22 of 726), against 1.25% for all ATL → MSY flights — this specific departure cancels 1.8 percentage points more 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 DL3128 specifically, not about the route it flies.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL3128 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 DL3128 on ATL → MSY. 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 DL3128 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying DL3128 came in 15 or more minutes late on 12% 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 ATL just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 570 of 704 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 |
|---|---|
| DL3128 | 12% |
| Network, same turn | 23% |
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 DL3128’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 June 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves ATL late, does that still matter by the time it reaches MSY?
DL3128 pushes back an average of 2.4 minutes late and reaches the gate at MSY an average of 2.7 minutes early. The 5.0 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 17.5 minutes on the taxiways at ATL is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at MSY, DL3128 spends 4.6 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 about what any arrival at MSY 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 MSY. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 80,028 departures from ATL scheduled in the clock hour DL3128 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at MSY (154,323 flights), not just DL3128’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves ATL
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL3128 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 80,028 departures from ATL are scheduled in the 8 AM–9 AM hour over the period, against 1,012,247 across the whole day.
DL3128 is scheduled out of ATL at 8:30 AM, in the 8 AM–9 AM bank. Departures from ATL in that hour arrive on time 88.0% of the time against 78.7% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 9.3 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from ATL 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 DL3128 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSY→ATL New Orleans to Atlanta | June 7, 2024 – July 31, 2026 | 704 | 89.0% |
| GSO→ATL Greensboro to Atlanta | November 22–29, 2025 | 2 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL3128 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.
13 min late
against a median of 9 min early
Percentiles over 726 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL3128 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 90.6% | 9 min early | 726 |
| DL1424 | Delta Air Lines | 86.3% | 7 min early | 718 |
| DL2542 | Delta Air Lines | 83.2% | 4 min early | 1,074 |
| DL2224 | Delta Air Lines | 75.0% | 3 min early | 1,091 |
| DL1450 | Delta Air Lines | 69.2% | 1 min early | 676 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL3128 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 726 records of DL3128 operating ATL → MSY, 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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