Flight number record
DL 501
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Los Angeles
- Route
- ATL → LAX
- Departs
- 10:25
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 50 minutes. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 501's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 77 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 363 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Schedule
When DL 501 flies
DL 501 flies ATL to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 10:25, used on 126 of 363 flights, with 10:15 (65 flights) next.
- Departs 10:25126 flights34.7%
- Departs 10:1565 flights17.9%
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 10:25 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 501 runs level with that at 85.0%. 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 501 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 501 is 7 points ahead of 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 beats by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 501thin sample | 363 | 85.0% | 50 min | 1.10% | A |
| 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 501 quarter by quarter
DL 501 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 78.2%, a swing of 15 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 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.2%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights78.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights82.4%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights85.0%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 501 ranged from 80.8% on Monday to 88.5% on Wednesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 8 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 501 runs when it is late
DL 501 often beats the schedule: 104 of 359 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 54 late arrivals split 26 under half an hour, 12 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 16 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early104 flights29.0%
- Within 15 min201 flights56.0%
- 15–29 min late26 flights7.2%
- 30–59 min late12 flights3.3%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights3.1%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 359 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 53 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 16 still arrived on time. 17 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 501
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 July 2026, 3 hours 39 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 July 2026 | 3 hours 39 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 3 hours 23 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 July 2026 | 3 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 March 2026 | 2 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 February 2026 | 2 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 501 runs late
Carrier accounts for 70% of the 2,721 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 10%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,912 of the 2,721 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,721 delay minutes reported on DL 501.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% 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 1,947 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 363 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. 363 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: 85.0% on time and 1.10% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single 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 996 on the same route88.6%
- Delta Air Lines 500 on the same route74.0%
- 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
- 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.