Flight number record

DL 501

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Los Angeles

Route: ATL → LAX
Departs: 10:20
Flights: 364
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 501, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 501 earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 45 minutes. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 501's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 88 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

86.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 361 completed flights

Avg delay

44 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.82%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

3.6%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 501 flies

DL 501 flies ATL to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 10:20, used on 89 of 364 flights, with 10:25 (71 flights) and 10:15 (65 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 10:2089 flights24.5%
Departs 10:2571 flights19.5%
Departs 10:1565 flights17.9%

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 10:20 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and DL 501 runs 2 points better at 86.4%. 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 501 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 501 is 8 points ahead of 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 beats by 5 points.

DL 501 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 501thin sample	364	86.4%	44 min	0.82%	A+
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 501 quarter by quarter

DL 501 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.5% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 78.2%, a swing of 15 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 flights93.5%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.2%
Jan–Mar 202689 flights78.2%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights82.4%

Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 501 ranged from 80.4% on Monday to 90.4% on Wednesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Delay causes

Why DL 501 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 65% of the 2,149 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
65%
National Airspace System
23%
Late-arriving aircraft
11%
Extreme weather
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 65%, 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 1,387 of the 2,149 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,149 delay minutes reported on DL 501.

Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% 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 1,947 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 364 flights under DL 501 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. 364 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 501

For a booking, DL 501 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 86.4% on time and 0.82% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single 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