Flight number record

DL 538

Delta Air Lines · Tampa to Los Angeles

Route: TPA → LAX
Departs: 07:00
Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 538, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 538 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 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 538's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 101 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

87.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights

Avg delay

71 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.64%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

3.9%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 538 flies

DL 538 flies TPA to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 75 of 365 flights, with 07:35 (59 flights) and 07:05 (45 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 07:0075 flights20.5%
Departs 07:3559 flights16.2%
Departs 07:0545 flights12.3%

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 07:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 538 runs level with that at 87.7%. 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 538 next to TPA to LAX

Every carrier on TPA to LAX combined arrived on time 83.5% of the time across 1,192 flights, so DL 538 is 4 points ahead of it. Delta flew 659 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 6 points.

DL 538 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 538	365	87.7%	71 min	1.64%	A
All Delta Air Lines on TPA–LAX	659	83.1%	64 min	1.37%	B
All carriers on TPA–LAX	1,192	83.5%	59 min	0.84%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 538 quarter by quarter

DL 538 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 94.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 81.3%, a swing of 13 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 flights81.3%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights82.2%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights94.3%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights93.3%

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

By weekday, DL 538 did best on Sunday at 92.0% on time and worst on Wednesday at 79.6%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 12 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 538 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 3,119 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
44%
Late-arriving aircraft
43%
National Airspace System
13%
Extreme weather
0%

43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 3,119 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 43 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 3,119 delay minutes reported on DL 538.

Cancellations sit at 1.64% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.9% 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 2,158 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 538 in the data flew TPA 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 538

For a booking, read DL 538 as 87.7% on time with 1.64% cancelled over 365 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