I have been tracking an upcoming flight at Flightstats.com to check how often it departs my city late. This is a 50 seat CRJ scheduled for 7:30 a.m. departure. I am not sure whether the flight originates here or is coming in from another city. Flightview gives it 2 stars out of 5 rating for on-time performance.

I checked about a dozen recent dates and found that it frequently departs late -- not just a little late, but hours late. 5 hours one day, 2 hrs. 49 min. another day. 2 hr. 38 minutes another day, etc, etc. I checked flights for other airlines that depart around the same time and they were on-time, so it isn't an airport problem, it's a Delta problem.

I understand an occasional equipment problem can delay a flight significantly, but what could possibly make an early morning flight so frequently late by so much?