Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL897
Salt Lake City (SLC) to Atlanta (ATL) · scheduled 8:00 AM – 1:48 PM
How DL897 performs
785 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL897 arrived on time 88.0% of the time, against 85.5% for all SLC → ATL flights, so this departure is 2.5 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 2.4 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 785 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL897 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL897 is right now
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL897 | 88.0% | 0.89% | -10 min | 4.1% | 785 |
| Delta Air Lines on SLC → ATL | 85.6% | 0.57% | -10 min | 4.4% | 9,174 |
| All SLC → ATL flights | 85.5% | 0.57% | -10 min | 4.5% | 9,235 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL897 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 DL897 on SLC → ATL. 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 DL897 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
DL897 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 9.8 hours on the ground at SLC, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL897 pushed back an average of 13 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 SLC just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 540 of 778 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL897 | 23% | 18% | 7% |
| 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 DL897’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL897 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 SLC late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ATL?
DL897 pushes back an average of 9.0 minutes late and reaches the gate at ATL an average of 0.8 minutes early. 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 19.1 minutes on the taxiways at SLC, 2.3 minutes shorter than a typical SLC departure in the same hour.
On arrival at ATL, DL897 spends 7.4 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 2.2 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 22,898 departures from SLC scheduled in the clock hour DL897 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 DL897’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SLC
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL897 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 22,898 departures from SLC are scheduled in the 8 AM–9 AM hour over the period, against 355,300 across the whole day.
DL897 is scheduled out of SLC at 8:00 AM, in the 8 AM–9 AM bank. Departures from SLC in that hour arrive on time 87.6% of the time against 84.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 3.6 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SLC 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 DL897 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→SAV Minneapolis to Savannah | May 7, 2024 – June 6, 2024 | 31 | — |
| SAV→MSP Savannah to Minneapolis | May 7, 2024 – June 6, 2024 | 31 | — |
| SEA→BOS Seattle to Boston | April 9, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 24 | — |
| SLC→MSP Salt Lake City to Minneapolis | March 10, 2024 – April 8, 2024 | 18 | — |
| LAX→SFO Los Angeles to San Francisco | March 12, 2024 – April 6, 2024 | 12 | — |
| MKE→MSP Milwaukee to Minneapolis | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 58 | — |
| MSP→MKE Minneapolis to Milwaukee | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 58 | — |
| SAN→DTW San Diego to Detroit | October 9, 2023 – January 7, 2024 | 32 | — |
| ATL→BWI Atlanta to Baltimore | November 6, 2023 – December 11, 2023 | 13 | — |
| LAX→SEA Los Angeles to Seattle | December 4–6, 2023 | 3 | — |
| FLL→CVG Fort Lauderdale to Cincinnati / Covington | October 28, 2023 – November 4, 2023 | 6 | — |
| SJC→ATL San Jose to Atlanta | October 12–22, 2023 | 6 | — |
| SLC→ANC Salt Lake City to Anchorage | September 8–17, 2023 | 6 | — |
| ATL→GEG Atlanta to Spokane | July 10, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 32 | — |
| GEG→ATL Spokane to Atlanta | July 10, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 32 | — |
| ATL→LAX Atlanta to Los Angeles | July 9, 2023 | 1 | — |
| ATL→GSO Atlanta to Greensboro | July 1–8, 2023 | 2 | — |
| GSO→ATL Greensboro to Atlanta | July 1–8, 2023 | 2 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL897 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.
18 min late
against a median of 10 min early
Percentiles over 785 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL907 | Delta Air Lines | 90.5% | 13 min early | 874 |
| DL897 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 88.0% | 10 min early | 785 |
| DL885 | Delta Air Lines | 83.9% | 6 min early | 785 |
| DL906 | Delta Air Lines | 83.2% | 8 min early | 748 |
| DL912 | Delta Air Lines | 83.0% | 10 min early | 847 |
| DL905 | Delta Air Lines | 80.2% | 9 min early | 988 |
| DL875 | Delta Air Lines | 79.7% | 10 min early | 676 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL897 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 785 records of DL897 operating SLC → 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
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