Flight number record

DL 656

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to San Francisco

Route: ATL → SFO
Departs: 22:40
Flights: 250
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 656, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 656 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 250 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 656 runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 66 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 245 completed flights

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.60%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

7.8%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 250 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Schedule

When DL 656 flies

DL 656 flies ATL to SFO without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 22:40, used on 49 of 250 flights, with 21:59 (39 flights) and 21:00 (38 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 22:4049 flights19.6%
Departs 21:5939 flights15.6%
Departs 21:0038 flights15.2%

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 22:40 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 656 runs level with that at 71.0%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

Against the route

DL 656 next to ATL to SFO

Every carrier on ATL to SFO combined arrived on time 71.4% of the time across 3,354 flights, so DL 656 is about level with it. Delta flew 2,410 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 70.2% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 11 points.

DL 656 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 656thin sample	250	71.0%	54 min	1.60%	C
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–SFO	2,410	70.2%	55 min	0.62%	C+
All carriers on ATL–SFO	3,354	71.4%	58 min	0.63%	C+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 656 quarter by quarter

DL 656 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 75.6% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 64.0%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 63 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 202541 flights70.7%
Oct–Dec 202579 flights71.1%
Jan–Mar 202680 flights75.6%
Apr–Jun 202650 flights64.0%

Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 656 did best on Monday at 75.6% on time and worst on Sunday at 57.8%. Each day rests on about 36 flights, so a gap of 18 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 656 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 3,817 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
45%
National Airspace System
36%
Late-arriving aircraft
18%
Extreme weather
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 1,700 of the 3,817 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,817 delay minutes reported on DL 656.

Cancellations sit at 1.60% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.40%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

7.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,139 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 three other city pairs in the data, including PNS to ATL (32), BOS to LGA (1) and DTW to GSP (1), but none flew often enough under DL 656 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ATL to SFO only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 250 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 656

For a booking, read DL 656 as 71.0% on time with 1.60% cancelled over 250 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