Flight number record

DL 500

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Los Angeles

Route: ATL → LAX
Departs: 18:30
Flights: 362
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 500, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 500 lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 362 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

On time

76.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.28%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

7.8%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 362 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 500 flies

DL 500 flies ATL to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:30, used on 123 of 362 flights, with 18:35 (51 flights) and 18:20 (40 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 18:30123 flights34.0%
Departs 18:3551 flights14.1%
Departs 18:2040 flights11.0%

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 18:30 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 500 runs 9 points better at 76.9%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

Against the route

DL 500 next to ATL to LAX

Every carrier on ATL to LAX combined arrived on time 78.4% of the time across 5,021 flights, so DL 500 is 2 points behind it. Delta flew 3,849 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 5 points.

DL 500 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 500thin sample	362	76.9%	54 min	0.28%	B+
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–LAX	3,849	79.6%	55 min	0.75%	B+
All carriers on ATL–LAX	5,021	78.4%	63 min	0.86%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	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 2025 at 69.6%, a swing of 19 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 flights69.6%
Oct–Dec 202590 flights80.0%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights88.6%
Apr–Jun 202690 flights70.0%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 500 did best on Wednesday at 84.3% on time and worst on Tuesday at 69.8%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 15 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 500 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 4,447 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
26%
Late-arriving aircraft
17%
Extreme weather
4%

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 2,311 of the 4,447 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,447 delay minutes reported on DL 500.

Cancellations are rare at 0.28%, below the national 1.81% 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

7.8% 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 roughly 55 minutes, 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.

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 76.9% on time with 0.28% cancelled over 362 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