Flight number record
DL 471
Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to Atlanta
- Route
- LAX → ATL
- Departs
- 17:30
- Flights
- 281
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 471, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 471 earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 281 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 471's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 69 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 278 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.07%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 281 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Schedule
When DL 471 flies
DL 471 flies LAX to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:30, used on 74 of 281 flights, with 16:40 (37 flights) and 17:25 (31 flights) next.
- Departs 17:3074 flights26.3%
- Departs 16:4037 flights13.2%
- Departs 17:2531 flights11.0%
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 17:30 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 471 runs 16 points better at 84.2%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Against the route
DL 471 next to LAX to ATL
Every carrier on LAX to ATL combined arrived on time 78.6% of the time across 4,843 flights, so DL 471 is 6 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,811 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 80.8% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 471thin sample | 281 | 84.2% | 59 min | 1.07% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on LAX–ATL | 3,811 | 80.8% | 66 min | 0.84% | B+ |
| All carriers on LAX–ATL | 4,843 | 78.6% | 68 min | 0.89% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 471 quarter by quarter
DL 471 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 77.8%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 56 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 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202588 flights88.5%
- Jan–Mar 202650 flights80.0%
- Apr–Jun 202668 flights81.8%
- Jul–Sep 202645 flights77.8%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 471 ranged from 75.5% on Monday to 87.0% on Sunday. With about 40 flights behind each day, a spread of 12 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 471 runs when it is late
DL 471 often beats the schedule: 94 of 278 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 44 late arrivals split 18 under half an hour, 11 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 15 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early94 flights33.8%
- Within 15 min140 flights50.4%
- 15–29 min late18 flights6.5%
- 30–59 min late11 flights4.0%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights3.6%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 278 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
14 of 53 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. Only 5 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 471
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 March 2026, 4 hours 44 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. Three of the five worst days fell in March 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 March 2026 | 4 hours 44 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 22 May 2026 | 3 hours 2 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 November 2025 | 2 hours 41 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 15 March 2026 | 2 hours 36 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 23 March 2026 | 2 hours 36 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 471 runs late
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 2,581 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,114 of the 2,581 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,581 delay minutes reported on DL 471.
Cancellations sit at 1.07% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.4% 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 about an hour, 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.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including FLL to DTW (1) and DTW to FLL (1), but none flew often enough under DL 471 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to LAX to ATL only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 281 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 471
For a booking, read DL 471 as 84.2% on time with 1.07% cancelled over 281 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to LAX, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 515 on the same route82.9%
- Delta Air Lines 390 on the same route88.5%
- Delta Air Lines 782 on the same route79.8%
- Delta Air Lines 783 on the same route80.2%
- Delta Air Lines 899 on the same route79.5%
- Delta Air Lines 446 on the same route84.7%
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- 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
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.