Flight number record
DL 1189
Delta Air Lines · Salt Lake City to Santa Ana
- Route
- SLC → SNA
- Departs
- 11:20
- Flights
- 281
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1189, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1189 lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 281 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 280 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.36%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 281 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Schedule
When DL 1189 flies
DL 1189 flies SLC to SNA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 11:20, used on 62 of 281 flights, with 11:10 (60 flights) and 11:15 (41 flights) next.
- Departs 11:2062 flights22.1%
- Departs 11:1060 flights21.4%
- Departs 11:1541 flights14.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 11:20 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 1189 runs level with that at 77.5%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
DL 1189 next to SLC to SNA
Every carrier on SLC to SNA combined arrived on time 83.1% of the time across 1,858 flights, so DL 1189 is 6 points behind it. Delta flew 1,606 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.0% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1189thin sample | 281 | 77.5% | 58 min | 0.36% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on SLC–SNA | 1,606 | 83.0% | 62 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| All carriers on SLC–SNA | 1,858 | 83.1% | 63 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1189 quarter by quarter
DL 1189 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 87.1% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 72.5%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 94 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202529 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights72.5%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights77.8%
- Apr–Jun 202670 flights87.1%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1189 did best on Wednesday at 92.5% on time and worst on Saturday at 66.7%. Each day rests on about 40 flights, so a gap of 26 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1189 runs when it is late
DL 1189 often beats the schedule: 82 of 280 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 63 late arrivals split 29 under half an hour, 17 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 17 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early82 flights29.3%
- Within 15 min135 flights48.2%
- 15–29 min late29 flights10.4%
- 30–59 min late17 flights6.1%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights2.9%
- 2+ hours late9 flights3.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 280 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
5 of 39 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. In the other direction, 29 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SNA.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1189
The latest arrival of the period was on 21 November 2025, 6 hours 30 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 21 November 2025 | 6 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 October 2025 | 3 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 February 2026 | 3 hours 22 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 February 2026 | 3 hours 2 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 27 September 2025 | 2 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 1189 runs late
Carrier accounts for 61% of the 3,675 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,234 of the 3,675 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,675 delay minutes reported on DL 1189.
Cancellations are rare at 0.36%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
6.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 588 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including SNA to SLC (36) and SFO to BOS (8), but none flew often enough under DL 1189 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SLC to SNA only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 281 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking DL 1189
For a booking, DL 1189 is one of the weaker ways to fly SLC to SNA: 6 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.
Related
Where to go next
- SLC to SNA, every carrier and departure
- SNA to SLC, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1304 on the same route84.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1198 on the same route88.8%
- Delta Air Lines 1277 on the same route81.1%
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record
- Every Delta Air Lines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
A flight number here means Delta Air Lines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.