Flight number record
DL 500
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Los Angeles
- Route
- ATL → LAX
- Departs
- 18:30
- Flights
- 362
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 500, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 500 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 362 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.83%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
10.3%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 362 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 500 flies
DL 500 flies ATL to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:30, used on 67 of 362 flights, with 17:58 (57 flights) and 18:35 (51 flights) next.
- Departs 18:3067 flights18.5%
- Departs 17:5857 flights15.7%
- Departs 18:3551 flights14.1%
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 18:30 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 500 runs 6 points better at 74.0%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
DL 500 next to ATL to LAX
Every carrier on ATL to LAX combined arrived on time 77.8% of the time across 4,851 flights, so DL 500 is 4 points behind it. Delta flew 3,817 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 7 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 500thin sample | 362 | 74.0% | 64 min | 0.83% | C+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–LAX | 3,817 | 79.1% | 57 min | 0.73% | B+ |
| All carriers on ATL–LAX | 4,851 | 77.8% | 65 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 500 quarter by quarter
DL 500 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 88.6% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 46.7%, a swing of 42 points on roughly 72 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 flights80.0%
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights80.0%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights88.6%
- Apr–Jun 202690 flights70.0%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights46.7%
Scale runs 40% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 500 ranged from 67.3% on Tuesday to 79.2% 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 500 runs when it is late
DL 500 often beats the schedule: 105 of 358 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 93 late arrivals split 20 under half an hour, 36 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 37 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early105 flights29.3%
- Within 15 min160 flights44.7%
- 15–29 min late20 flights5.6%
- 30–59 min late36 flights10.1%
- 1–2 hours late25 flights7.0%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 358 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
29 of 98 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 30% of them. In the other direction, 24 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 LAX.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 500
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 July 2026, 4 hours 42 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. Three of the five worst days fell in August 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 July 2026 | 4 hours 42 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 23 September 2025 | 4 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 August 2026 | 4 hours | Carrier |
| 11 August 2026 | 3 hours 6 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 16 August 2026 | 3 hours 2 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 500 runs late
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 5,962 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,719 of the 5,962 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,962 delay minutes reported on DL 500.
Cancellations are rare at 0.83%, 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
10.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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.
Every one of the 362 flights under DL 500 in the data flew ATL to LAX. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 362 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 500
For a booking, read DL 500 as 74.0% on time with 0.83% cancelled over 362 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to LAX, every carrier and departure
- LAX to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 895 on the same route87.6%
- Delta Air Lines 898 on the same route89.0%
- Delta Air Lines 501 on the same route85.0%
- Delta Air Lines 996 on the same route88.6%
- Delta Air Lines 753 on the same route82.4%
- Frontier Airlines 4315 on the same route73.8%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.