Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL325
Atlanta (ATL) to Washington (DCA) · scheduled 6:55 PM – 8:36 PM
How DL325 performs
774 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL325 arrived on time 60.8% of the time, against 73.7% for all ATL → DCA flights, so this departure is 12.9 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 10.6 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 774 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL325 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL325 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
Ask for the position of DL325 right now, if receivers on the ground are hearing it. Nothing is requested until you press the button.
Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL325 | 60.8% | 3.23% | 5 min | 13.7% | 774 |
| Delta Air Lines on ATL → DCA | 71.4% | 1.77% | 0 min | 8.8% | 11,809 |
| All ATL → DCA flights | 73.7% | 2.31% | -2 min | 8.9% | 21,171 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL325 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 DL325 on ATL → DCA. 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 DL325 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL325 pushed back an average of 42 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 9 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into ATL just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 690 of 749 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL325 | 18% | 59% | 21% |
| 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 DL325’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL325 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 June 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves ATL late, does that still matter by the time it reaches DCA?
DL325 pushes back an average of 17.4 minutes late and arrives a further 3.0 minutes behind that. This departure loses ground between the two gates rather than recovering it, so a late pushback here tends to get worse on the way, not better. It spends 20.6 minutes on the taxiways at ATL, 3.6 minutes longer than a typical ATL departure in the same hour.
On arrival at DCA, DL325 spends 6.4 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 1.2 minutes shorter than a typical DCA arrival (7.6 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 DCA. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 48,346 departures from ATL scheduled in the clock hour DL325 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at DCA (435,126 flights), not just DL325’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. DL325 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 48,346 departures from ATL are scheduled in the 6 PM–7 PM hour over the period, against 1,012,247 across the whole day.
DL325 is scheduled out of ATL at 6:55 PM, in the 6 PM–7 PM bank. Departures from ATL in that hour arrive on time 71.1% of the time against 78.7% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 7.6 points worse 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 DL325 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSP→LAX Minneapolis to Los Angeles | May 9, 2024 – June 6, 2024 | 16 | — |
| BOS→DFW Boston to Dallas–Fort Worth | May 11, 2024 – June 1, 2024 | 5 | — |
| DFW→BOS Dallas–Fort Worth to Boston | May 11, 2024 – June 1, 2024 | 5 | — |
| MSP→SAT Minneapolis to San Antonio | April 13, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 13 | — |
| SAT→MSP San Antonio to Minneapolis | April 22, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 9 | — |
| ATL→LAX Atlanta to Los Angeles | April 17, 2024 | 1 | — |
| DTW→ATL Detroit to Atlanta | April 14, 2024 | 1 | — |
| DFW→LGA Dallas–Fort Worth to New York | March 10, 2024 – April 8, 2024 | 26 | — |
| OMA→ATL Omaha to Atlanta | March 16, 2024 – April 6, 2024 | 4 | — |
| DEN→ATL Denver to Atlanta | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 62 | — |
| JFK→PHX New York to Phoenix | October 9, 2023 – January 7, 2024 | 50 | — |
| PHX→JFK Phoenix to New York | December 16, 2023 – January 7, 2024 | 17 | — |
| ATL→BDL Atlanta to Hartford | November 6, 2023 – December 15, 2023 | 28 | — |
| BDL→ATL Hartford to Atlanta | November 6, 2023 – December 15, 2023 | 28 | — |
| ATL→RIC Atlanta to Richmond | November 28, 2023 – December 6, 2023 | 9 | — |
| JFK→SFO New York to San Francisco | September 5–15, 2023 | 11 | — |
| SFO→JFK San Francisco to New York | September 5–15, 2023 | 11 | — |
| CVG→SEA Cincinnati / Covington to Seattle | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 66 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL325 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.
73 min late
against a median of 5 min late
DL325 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 5 min late, but the worst tenth are 68 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 774 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL380 | Delta Air Lines | 82.8% | 5 min early | 1,033 |
| DL926 | Delta Air Lines | 81.4% | 0 min early | 789 |
| DL737 | Delta Air Lines | 80.5% | 3 min early | 1,059 |
| DL360 | Delta Air Lines | 74.0% | 2 min early | 784 |
| DL537 | Delta Air Lines | 72.6% | 3 min early | 1,044 |
| DL950 | Delta Air Lines | 68.5% | 2 min early | 1,025 |
| DL850 | Delta Air Lines | 65.1% | 3 min late | 902 |
| DL832 | Delta Air Lines | 64.6% | 5 min late | 990 |
| DL325 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 60.8% | 5 min late | 774 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL325 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 774 records of DL325 operating ATL → DCA, 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