Flight number record
DL 538
Delta Air Lines · Tampa to Los Angeles
- Route
- TPA → LAX
- Departs
- 07:00
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 12 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 118 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 357 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.92%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
3.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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 07:05 (42 flights) next.
- Departs 07:0075 flights20.5%
- Departs 07:0542 flights11.5%
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 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 89.1%. 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 538 next to TPA to LAX
Every carrier on TPA to LAX combined arrived on time 83.6% of the time across 1,165 flights, so DL 538 is 6 points ahead of it. Delta flew 660 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.5% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 538 | 365 | 89.1% | 75 min | 1.92% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on TPA–LAX | 660 | 83.5% | 62 min | 1.36% | B |
| All carriers on TPA–LAX | 1,165 | 83.6% | 59 min | 0.86% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | 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 Oct–Dec 2025 at 82.2%, a swing of 12 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 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights82.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights94.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights93.3%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights85.0%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 538 ranged from 83.3% on Wednesday to 94.2% on Thursday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 538 runs when it is late
DL 538 often beats the schedule: 107 of 357 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 39 late arrivals split 19 under half an hour, 9 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 11 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early107 flights30.0%
- Within 15 min211 flights59.1%
- 15–29 min late19 flights5.3%
- 30–59 min late9 flights2.5%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.7%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 357 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
11 of 37 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 30% of them. 13 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 538
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 April 2026, 9 hours 15 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 8 April 2026 | 9 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 June 2026 | 7 hours 56 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 31 October 2025 | 3 hours 24 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 December 2025 | 3 hours 2 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 2 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 538 runs late
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 2,911 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 2,911 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 to one. The split is drawn from 2,911 delay minutes reported on DL 538.
Cancellations sit at 1.92% against a national 1.89%, 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 3.1% 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 2,158 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 89.1% on time with 1.92% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to LAX, every carrier and departure
- LAX to TPA, the return direction
- Tampa International (TPA) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.