Flight number record
DL 1396
Delta Air Lines · Little Rock to Atlanta
- Route
- LIT → ATL
- Departs
- 07:30
- Flights
- 347
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1396, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1396 earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 15 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 347 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 1396's record is 15 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 150 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
92.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 339 completed flights
Avg delay
117 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.31%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.0%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 347 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 1396 flies
DL 1396 flies LIT to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:30, used on 106 of 347 flights, with 07:22 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 07:30106 flights30.5%
- Departs 07:2236 flights10.4%
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 07:30 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 1396 runs 3 points better at 92.3%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
DL 1396 next to LIT to ATL
Every carrier on LIT to ATL combined arrived on time 88.5% of the time across 2,276 flights, so DL 1396 is 4 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 11 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1396thin sample | 347 | 92.3% | 117 min | 2.31% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on LIT–ATL | 2,276 | 88.5% | 103 min | 2.07% | A |
| All carriers on LIT–ATL | 2,276 | 88.5% | 103 min | 2.07% | A |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1396 quarter by quarter
DL 1396 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 100.0% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 87.2%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 69 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 202530 flights100.0%
- Oct–Dec 202578 flights87.2%
- Jan–Mar 202686 flights94.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights93.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights90.3%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 1396 did best on Saturday at 100.0% on time and worst on Monday at 78.4%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 22 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1396 runs when it is late
DL 1396 often beats the schedule: 161 of 339 completed flights, 47%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When DL 1396 is late it tends to be very late: 17 of its 26 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 8 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early161 flights47.5%
- Within 15 min152 flights44.8%
- 15–29 min late7 flights2.1%
- 30–59 min late2 flights0.6%
- 1–2 hours late9 flights2.7%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 339 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
6 of 28 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. Only 4 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1396
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 November 2025, 6 hours 34 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 24 November 2025 | 6 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 August 2026 | 6 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 May 2026 | 5 hours 38 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 1 December 2025 | 4 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 August 2026 | 4 hours 3 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why DL 1396 runs late
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 3,036 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 41%Extreme weather
- 6%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 41% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the quarterly figures above are the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 6.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 3,036 delay minutes reported on DL 1396.
Cancellations sit at 2.31% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.0% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
Every one of the 347 flights under DL 1396 in the data flew LIT to ATL. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 347 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 1396
For a booking, read DL 1396 as 92.3% on time with 2.31% cancelled over 347 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- LIT to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to LIT, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1565 on the same route94.2%
- Delta Air Lines 3033 on the same route90.1%
- Delta Air Lines 3040 on the same route91.1%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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.