Flight number record

DL 398

Delta Air Lines · Denver to New York

Route: DEN → LGA
Departs: 06:25
Flights: 250
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 398, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 398 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 11 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 250 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 398's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 105 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

88.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 244 completed flights

Avg delay

119 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.40%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

6.6%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 250 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 13 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 398 flies

DL 398 flies DEN to LGA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:25, used on 51 of 250 flights, with 07:10 (44 flights) and 06:45 (37 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 06:2551 flights20.4%
Departs 07:1044 flights17.6%
Departs 06:4537 flights14.8%

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 06:25 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 398 runs level with that at 88.1%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

DL 398 next to DEN to LGA

Every carrier on DEN to LGA combined arrived on time 71.5% of the time across 4,672 flights, so DL 398 is 17 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,036 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.0% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 7 points.

DL 398 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 398thin sample	250	88.1%	119 min	2.40%	A
All Delta Air Lines on DEN–LGA	1,036	79.0%	81 min	4.44%	B−
All carriers on DEN–LGA	4,672	71.5%	68 min	2.74%	C
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 398 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter DL 398 held fairly steady: 87.5% in Jul–Sep 2025, 89.9% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 87.0% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 3 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202591 flights87.5%
Oct–Dec 202580 flights89.9%
Apr–Jun 202679 flights87.0%

Scale runs 80% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 398 did best on Tuesday at 94.4% on time and worst on Friday at 80.6%. Each day rests on about 36 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 398 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 89% of the 3,437 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
89%
National Airspace System
11%

The largest share of delay minutes, 89%, 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 3,063 of the 3,437 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,437 delay minutes reported on DL 398.

Cancellations sit at 2.40% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

6.6% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,620 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 one other city pair in the data, including MCO to DTW (5), but none flew often enough under DL 398 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to DEN to LGA only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 250 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 398

For a booking, read DL 398 as 88.1% on time with 2.40% cancelled over 250 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular 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