Flight number record
DL 353
Delta Air Lines · New York to Los Angeles
- Route
- JFK → LAX
- Departs
- 18:00
- Flights
- 291
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 353, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 353 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 291 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 353 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 77 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 286 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.72%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
10.8%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 291 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 353 flies
DL 353 flies JFK to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:00, used on 74 of 291 flights, with 18:05 (36 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 18:0074 flights25.4%
- Departs 18:0536 flights12.4%
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 18:00 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 353 runs level with that at 69.9%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
Against the route
DL 353 next to JFK to LAX
Every carrier on JFK to LAX combined arrived on time 77.6% of the time across 10,284 flights, so DL 353 is 8 points behind it. Delta flew 3,358 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 77.5% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 12 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 353thin sample | 291 | 69.9% | 75 min | 1.72% | C |
| All Delta Air Lines on JFK–LAX | 3,358 | 77.5% | 71 min | 1.79% | B |
| All carriers on JFK–LAX | 10,284 | 77.6% | 77 min | 1.94% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 353 quarter by quarter
DL 353 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 79.6% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 67.1%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 73 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 202579 flights68.4%
- Oct–Dec 202568 flights67.6%
- Jan–Mar 202658 flights79.6%
- Apr–Jun 202686 flights67.1%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 353 did best on Monday at 75.5% on time and worst on Tuesday at 61.0%. Each day rests on about 42 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 353 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 6,483 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.
- 45%Carrier
- 42%National Airspace System
- 12%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 2,920 of the 6,483 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,483 delay minutes reported on DL 353.
Cancellations sit at 1.72% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 2,475 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.
The same number turns up on five other city pairs in the data, including ATL to BZN (14), BZN to ATL (14) and SAT to DTW (7), but none flew often enough under DL 353 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to JFK to LAX only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 291 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 353
For a booking, DL 353 is one of the weaker ways to fly JFK to LAX: 8 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
- JFK to LAX, every carrier and departure
- LAX to JFK, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 738 on the same route74.6%
- American Airlines 117 on the same route71.1%
- American Airlines 171 on the same route88.5%
- Delta Air Lines 773 on the same route81.9%
- American Airlines 341 on the same route78.6%
- American Airlines 255 on the same route82.5%
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.