Flight number record
DL 504
Delta Air Lines · Orlando to Los Angeles
- Route
- MCO → LAX
- Departs
- 09:45
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 15 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 504's record is 15 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 146 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
91.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 357 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 504 flies
DL 504 flies MCO to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:45, used on 86 of 365 flights, with 09:25 (60 flights) and 10:20 (56 flights) next.
- Departs 09:4586 flights23.6%
- Departs 09:2560 flights16.4%
- Departs 10:2056 flights15.3%
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 09:45 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 504 runs 8 points better at 91.9%. 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 504 next to MCO to LAX
Every carrier on MCO to LAX combined arrived on time 81.7% of the time across 3,517 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 84.5% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 11 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 504 | 365 | 91.9% | 89 min | 1.37% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on MCO–LAX | 1,383 | 84.5% | 72 min | 1.30% | B |
| All carriers on MCO–LAX | 3,517 | 81.7% | 72 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 504 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 504 held fairly steady: 90.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 92.1% in Oct–Dec 2025, 93.2% in Jan–Mar 2026, 94.4% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 86.9% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights92.1%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights93.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights94.4%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights86.9%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 504 ranged from 84.6% on Thursday to 96.1% on Friday. 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 504 runs when it is late
DL 504 often beats the schedule: 171 of 357 completed flights, 48%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 29 late arrivals split 10 under half an hour, 10 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 9 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early171 flights47.9%
- Within 15 min157 flights44.0%
- 15–29 min late10 flights2.8%
- 30–59 min late10 flights2.8%
- 1–2 hours late4 flights1.1%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 357 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
5 of 23 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. 11 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 504
The latest arrival of the period was on 15 January 2026, 10 hours 23 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 15 January 2026 | 10 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 October 2025 | 7 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 March 2026 | 3 hours 23 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 July 2026 | 3 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 August 2026 | 2 hours 29 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 504 runs late
Carrier accounts for 65% of the 2,566 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 65%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 65%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,674 of the 2,566 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,566 delay minutes reported on DL 504.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.89%, 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 2.5% 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 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: 91.9% on time and 1.37% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to LAX, every carrier and departure
- LAX to MCO, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 484 on the same route94.5%
- American Airlines 1928 on the same route86.7%
- American Airlines 1205 on the same route62.1%
- Orlando International (MCO) 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.