Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL890
Raleigh–Durham (RDU) to Miami (MIA) · scheduled 8:00 AM – 10:15 AM
How DL890 performs
779 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL890 arrived on time 84.7% of the time, against 78.1% for all RDU → MIA flights, so this departure is 6.6 percentage points better than the route as a whole.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 779 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL890 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL890 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL890 | 84.7% | 1.67% | -10 min | 7.2% | 779 |
| Delta Air Lines on RDU → MIA | 84.5% | 1.43% | -9 min | 6.5% | 1,120 |
| All RDU → MIA flights | 78.1% | 1.54% | -6 min | 8.9% | 7,457 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL890 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
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 DL890 on RDU → MIA. 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 DL890 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
DL890 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 10.4 hours on the ground at RDU, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL890 pushed back an average of 14 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 2 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into RDU just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 569 of 766 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL890 | 24% | 17% | 9% |
| 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 DL890’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL890 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 RDU late, does that still matter by the time it reaches MIA?
DL890 pushes back an average of 7.6 minutes late and reaches the gate at MIA an average of 2.0 minutes late. The 5.6 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 17.1 minutes on the taxiways at RDU is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at MIA, DL890 spends 9.3 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 MIA 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 MIA. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 9,839 departures from RDU scheduled in the clock hour DL890 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at MIA (340,467 flights), not just DL890’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves RDU
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL890 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 9,839 departures from RDU are scheduled in the 8 AM–9 AM hour over the period, against 179,935 across the whole day.
DL890 is scheduled out of RDU at 8:00 AM, in the 8 AM–9 AM bank. Departures from RDU in that hour arrive on time 85.7% of the time against 79.4% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 6.3 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from RDU 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 DL890 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PHX→ATL Phoenix to Atlanta | May 7, 2024 – June 6, 2024 | 30 | — |
| ATL→DEN Atlanta to Denver | March 10, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 34 | — |
| TPA→LAX Tampa to Los Angeles | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 62 | — |
| SAN→BOS San Diego to Boston | December 16, 2023 – January 6, 2024 | 22 | — |
| LAX→SAT Los Angeles to San Antonio | November 5, 2023 – December 6, 2023 | 30 | — |
| ORD→MSP Chicago to Minneapolis | October 28, 2023 – November 4, 2023 | 5 | — |
| MSP→MCI Minneapolis to Kansas City | October 9–27, 2023 | 19 | — |
| MCI→MSP Kansas City to Minneapolis | October 14–21, 2023 | 2 | — |
| ATL→HOU Atlanta to Houston | September 9, 2023 – October 8, 2023 | 26 | — |
| HOU→ATL Houston to Atlanta | September 9, 2023 – October 8, 2023 | 26 | — |
| IAD→SEA Washington to Seattle | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 66 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL890 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.
36 min late
against a median of 10 min early
Percentiles over 779 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA1088 | American Airlines | 87.9% | 7 min early | 832 |
| DL890 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 84.7% | 10 min early | 779 |
| AA1891 | American Airlines | 67.0% | 0 min early | 842 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL890 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 779 records of DL890 operating RDU → MIA, 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