Flight number record

DL 301

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Los Angeles

Route: ATL → LAX
Departs: 16:50
Flights: 308
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 301, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 301 draws a C+. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 308 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 301 runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 117 extra late arrivals.

On time

65.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 308 completed flights

Avg delay

53 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.00%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

8.4%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 308 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Schedule

When DL 301 flies

DL 301 flies ATL to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:50, used on 104 of 308 flights, with 16:45 (51 flights) and 16:40 (50 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 16:50104 flights33.8%
Departs 16:4551 flights16.6%
Departs 16:4050 flights16.2%

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 16:50 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 72.4%, and DL 301 runs 7 points worse at 65.9%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

DL 301 next to ATL to LAX

Every carrier on ATL to LAX combined arrived on time 78.4% of the time across 5,021 flights, so DL 301 is 13 points behind it. Delta flew 3,849 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 16 points.

DL 301 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 301thin sample	308	65.9%	53 min	0.00%	C+
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–LAX	3,849	79.6%	55 min	0.75%	B+
All carriers on ATL–LAX	5,021	78.4%	63 min	0.86%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 301 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter DL 301 held fairly steady: 64.1% in Jul–Sep 2025, 71.1% in Oct–Dec 2025, 63.3% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 63.9% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202592 flights64.1%
Oct–Dec 202590 flights71.1%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights63.3%
Apr–Jun 202636 flights63.9%

Scale runs 55% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 301 did best on Wednesday at 82.2% on time and worst on Saturday at 53.5%. Each day rests on about 44 flights, so a gap of 29 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 301 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 66% of the 5,524 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
66%
Late-arriving aircraft
16%
National Airspace System
14%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 66%, 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 3,659 of the 5,524 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,524 delay minutes reported on DL 301.

Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

8.4% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,947 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.

Every one of the 308 flights under DL 301 in the data flew ATL to LAX. 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. 308 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 301

For a booking, DL 301 is one of the weaker ways to fly ATL to LAX: 13 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.

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