Flight number record
DL 492
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to San Diego
- Route
- DTW → SAN
- Departs
- 08:40
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 492, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 492 lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 492's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 55 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 361 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.6%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
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Schedule
When DL 492 flies
DL 492 flies DTW to SAN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:40, used on 125 of 365 flights, with 08:25 (98 flights) and 08:35 (65 flights) next.
- Departs 08:40125 flights34.2%
- Departs 08:2598 flights26.8%
- Departs 08:3565 flights17.8%
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 08:40 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 492 runs level with that at 82.8%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
DL 492 next to DTW to SAN
Every carrier on DTW to SAN combined arrived on time 73.5% of the time across 1,269 flights, so DL 492 is 9 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,250 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 73.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 492 | 365 | 82.8% | 56 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on DTW–SAN | 1,250 | 73.3% | 60 min | 0.80% | C+ |
| All carriers on DTW–SAN | 1,269 | 73.5% | 60 min | 0.87% | C+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 492 quarter by quarter
DL 492 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 87.9% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 76.7%, a swing of 11 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 202530 flights76.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights81.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights81.6%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.9%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights82.3%
Scale runs 70% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 492 ranged from 76.9% on Friday to 88.5% on Monday. With about 52 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 492 runs when it is late
The 62 late arrivals split 27 under half an hour, 22 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 13 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early81 flights22.4%
- Within 15 min218 flights60.4%
- 15–29 min late27 flights7.5%
- 30–59 min late22 flights6.1%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.7%
- 2+ hours late7 flights1.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 361 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 40 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 12 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 34 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SAN.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 492
The latest arrival of the period was on 21 November 2025, 4 hours 58 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 21 November 2025 | 4 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 July 2026 | 3 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 December 2025 | 3 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 August 2026 | 3 hours 27 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 September 2025 | 3 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 492 runs late
Carrier accounts for 63% of the 3,459 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 63%Carrier
- 33%National Airspace System
- 3%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 63%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,183 of the 3,459 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,459 delay minutes reported on DL 492.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 1,956 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 492 is not only a DTW to SAN flight. It also flew SAN to DTW (288 flights, 81.0% 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. 365 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SAN to DTWthin sample | 288 | 81.0% | 72 min | 1.04% | B |
What to do with this
Booking DL 492
For a booking, read DL 492 as 82.8% on time with 0.82% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to SAN, every carrier and departure
- SAN to DTW, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 369 on the same route71.8%
- Delta Air Lines 700 on the same route61.1%
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- San Diego International (SAN) 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.