Flight number record

DL 504

Delta Air Lines · Orlando to Los Angeles

Route: MCO → LAX
Departs: 10:00
Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 504, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 504 earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 13 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 504's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 132 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

90.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights

Avg delay

84 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

2.0%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 504 flies

DL 504 flies MCO to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 10:00, used on 90 of 365 flights, with 09:25 (60 flights) and 10:20 (56 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 10:0090 flights24.7%
Departs 09:2560 flights16.4%
Departs 10:2056 flights15.3%

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 10:00 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and DL 504 runs 7 points better at 90.8%. 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 504 next to MCO to LAX

Every carrier on MCO to LAX combined arrived on time 80.4% of the time across 3,489 flights, so DL 504 is 10 points ahead of it. Delta flew 1,383 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.8% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 9 points.

DL 504 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 504	365	90.8%	84 min	1.10%	A
All Delta Air Lines on MCO–LAX	1,383	83.8%	78 min	1.16%	B
All carriers on MCO–LAX	3,489	80.4%	79 min	0.60%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 504 quarter by quarter

DL 504 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 94.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.7%, 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 flights83.7%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights92.1%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights93.2%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights94.4%

Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 504 did best on Tuesday at 96.2% on time and worst on Thursday at 82.7%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 504 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 66% of the 2,758 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
66%
National Airspace System
25%
Late-arriving aircraft
9%

The largest share of delay minutes, 66%, 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 1,822 of the 2,758 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,758 delay minutes reported on DL 504.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.0% 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 2,218 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 365 flights under DL 504 in the data flew MCO 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. 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.

What to do with this

Booking DL 504

For a booking, DL 504 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 90.8% on time and 1.10% 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