Flight number record

DL 492

Delta Air Lines · Detroit to San Diego

Route: DTW → SAN
Departs: 08:25
Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 492, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 492 lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 492's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 43 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

81.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights

Avg delay

46 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

2.5%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Schedule

When DL 492 flies

DL 492 flies DTW to SAN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:25, used on 133 of 365 flights, with 08:40 (119 flights) and 08:35 (43 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 08:25133 flights36.4%
Departs 08:40119 flights32.6%
Departs 08:3543 flights11.8%

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 08:25 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and DL 492 runs 2 points worse at 81.9%. 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 492 next to DTW to SAN

Every carrier on DTW to SAN combined arrived on time 75.4% of the time across 1,314 flights, so DL 492 is 7 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,260 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, close to this flight's figure.

DL 492 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 492	365	81.9%	46 min	1.10%	B
All Delta Air Lines on DTW–SAN	1,260	74.9%	58 min	1.03%	C
All carriers on DTW–SAN	1,314	75.4%	58 min	1.07%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	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 76.9%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 91 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 202592 flights76.9%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights81.3%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights81.6%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights87.9%

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 492 did best on Monday at 88.2% on time and worst on Sunday at 75.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 492 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 2,992 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
52%
National Airspace System
42%
Late-arriving aircraft
6%

The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, 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 1,552 of the 2,992 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,992 delay minutes reported on DL 492.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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, 77.8% 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.

Other routes flown as DL 492
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SAN to DTWthin sample	288	77.8%	58 min	1.04%	B

What to do with this

Booking DL 492

For a booking, read DL 492 as 81.9% on time with 1.10% cancelled over 365 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