Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL817
Boston (BOS) to Raleigh–Durham (RDU) · scheduled 8:05 PM – 10:00 PM
How DL817 performs
614 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL817 arrived on time 60.5% of the time, against 76.9% for all BOS → RDU flights, so this departure is 16.4 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 18.4 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 614 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL817 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 DL817 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 98% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
A typical arrival is 3 min early, but the worst tenth run 120 minutes worse than that.
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 DL817 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL817 | 60.5% | 2.61% | -3 min | 21.3% | 614 |
| Delta Air Lines on BOS → RDU | 78.9% | 1.47% | -10 min | 10.6% | 4,492 |
| All BOS → RDU flights | 76.9% | 1.78% | -9 min | 10.5% | 9,030 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL817 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
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
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL817 on BOS → RDU. 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 DL817 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL817 pushed back an average of 76 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 4 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into BOS just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 566 of 598 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL817 | 34% | 92% | 14% |
| Network, same turn | 18% | 85% | 10% |
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 45 to 59 minutes. How often DL817’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL817 left 15 or more minutes late is higher 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 BOS late, does that still matter by the time it reaches RDU?
DL817 pushes back an average of 34.8 minutes late and reaches the gate at RDU an average of 25.0 minutes late. The 9.8 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 21.7 minutes on the taxiways at BOS, 1.4 minutes longer than a typical BOS departure in the same hour.
On arrival at RDU, DL817 spends 6.2 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 about what any arrival at RDU 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 RDU. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 22,665 departures from BOS scheduled in the clock hour DL817 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at RDU (179,931 flights), not just DL817’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves BOS
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL817 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 22,665 departures from BOS are scheduled in the 8 PM–9 PM hour over the period, against 440,893 across the whole day.
DL817 is scheduled out of BOS at 8:05 PM, in the 8 PM–9 PM bank. Departures from BOS in that hour arrive on time 63.2% of the time against 77.2% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 14.0 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from BOS 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 DL817 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AGS→ATL Augusta to Atlanta | January 24, 2026 – February 7, 2026 | 3 | — |
| ATL→AGS Atlanta to Augusta | January 24, 2026 – February 7, 2026 | 3 | — |
| ATL→MEM Atlanta to Memphis | December 20, 2025 – January 4, 2026 | 11 | — |
| DEN→ATL Denver to Atlanta | July 1, 2023 – June 6, 2024 | 342 | 90.9% |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL817 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.
117 min late
against a median of 3 min early
DL817 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 3 min early, but the worst tenth are 120 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 614 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL2066 | Delta Air Lines | 90.6% | 16 min early | 885 |
| B61883 | JetBlue | 86.0% | 13 min early | 953 |
| DL2118 | Delta Air Lines | 85.8% | 12 min early | 840 |
| DL2283 | Delta Air Lines | 83.1% | 10 min early | 879 |
| B62283 | JetBlue | 76.2% | 6 min early | 736 |
| B62783 | JetBlue | 61.0% | 2 min late | 686 |
| DL817 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 60.5% | 3 min early | 614 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL817 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 614 records of DL817 operating BOS → RDU, 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