Flight number record

DL 1961

Delta Air Lines · New York to San Juan

Route: JFK → SJU
Departs: 12:25
Flights: 364
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1961, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 1961 earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 1961's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 80 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

85.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights

Avg delay

78 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

6.4%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 15 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.

Schedule

When DL 1961 flies

DL 1961 flies JFK to SJU without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:25, used on 104 of 364 flights, with 12:29 (95 flights) and 12:00 (62 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 12:25104 flights28.6%
Departs 12:2995 flights26.1%
Departs 12:0062 flights17.0%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 12:25 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and DL 1961 runs 7 points better at 85.6%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

DL 1961 next to JFK to SJU

Every carrier on JFK to SJU combined arrived on time 71.1% of the time across 3,651 flights, so DL 1961 is 15 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,104 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 78.8% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 4 points.

DL 1961 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 1961thin sample	364	85.6%	78 min	1.10%	A
All Delta Air Lines on JFK–SJU	1,104	78.8%	60 min	1.99%	B
All carriers on JFK–SJU	3,651	71.1%	74 min	2.63%	C
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 1961 quarter by quarter

DL 1961 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 93.4% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 79.1%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 91 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 202592 flights85.9%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights83.5%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights79.1%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights93.4%

Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 1961 did best on Monday at 94.1% on time and worst on Thursday at 76.5%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 18 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 1961 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 56% of the 4,046 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Carrier
56%
National Airspace System
23%
Late-arriving aircraft
17%
Security
3%
Extreme weather
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,253 of the 4,046 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,046 delay minutes reported on DL 1961.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

6.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,598 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

DL 1961 is not only a JFK to SJU flight. It also flew SJU to JFK (267 flights, 87.9% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 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.

Other routes flown as DL 1961
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SJU to JFKthin sample	267	87.9%	74 min	1.12%	A

What to do with this

Booking DL 1961

For a booking, DL 1961 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 85.6% on time and 1.10% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.

Where to go next

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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures