Flight number record
DL 654
Delta Air Lines · San Jose to Atlanta
- Route
- SJC → ATL
- Departs
- 06:35
- Flights
- 361
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 654, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 654 earns an A. Nearly every flight arrives inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 17 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 361 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 654's record is 17 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 171 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
94.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 354 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.39%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
1.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 361 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 654 flies
DL 654 flies SJC to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:35, used on 150 of 361 flights.
- Departs 06:35150 flights41.6%
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 06:35 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 654 runs 5 points better at 94.4%. 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 654 next to SJC to ATL
Every carrier on SJC to ATL combined arrived on time 92.9% of the time across 898 flights, so DL 654 is 2 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 13 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 654thin sample | 361 | 94.4% | 89 min | 1.39% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on SJC–ATL | 898 | 92.9% | 68 min | 1.22% | A |
| All carriers on SJC–ATL | 898 | 92.9% | 68 min | 1.22% | A |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 654 quarter by quarter
DL 654 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 100.0% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 89.5%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 72 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 flights100.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights96.7%
- Jan–Mar 202687 flights89.5%
- Apr–Jun 202690 flights95.5%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights93.2%
Scale runs 80% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 654 ranged from 89.8% on Sunday to 100.0% on Saturday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 654 runs when it is late
DL 654 often beats the schedule: 182 of 354 completed flights, 51%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 20 late arrivals split 7 under half an hour, 8 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 5 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early182 flights51.4%
- Within 15 min152 flights42.9%
- 15–29 min late7 flights2.0%
- 30–59 min late8 flights2.3%
- 1–2 hours late1 flights0.3%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 354 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 21 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 7 still arrived on time. Only 6 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 654
The latest arrival of the period was on 25 March 2026, 10 hours 41 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in March 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 25 March 2026 | 10 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 August 2026 | 4 hours 38 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 October 2025 | 3 hours 9 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 15 March 2026 | 2 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 March 2026 | 1 hour 20 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 654 runs late
Carrier accounts for 44% of the 1,787 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 13%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 13% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the quarterly figures above are the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 1,787 delay minutes reported on DL 654.
Cancellations sit at 1.39% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.4% 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 2,116 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.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including ATL to SJC (60), but none flew often enough under DL 654 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to SJC to ATL only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 361 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 654
For a booking, DL 654 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 94.4% on time and 1.39% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- SJC to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to SJC, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 809 on the same route90.8%
- Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International (SJC) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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.