Flight number record

DL 685

Delta Air Lines · New York to San Diego

Route: JFK → SAN
Departs: 20:29
Flights: 317
Period: September 2025 to August 2026

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 685, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 685 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 317 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 685 runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 54 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 302 completed flights

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.52%

National rate is 1.89%

1 hour+ late

8.9%

National rate is 8.3%

These figures cover 317 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.

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Schedule

When DL 685 flies

DL 685 flies JFK to SAN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 20:29, used on 137 of 317 flights, with 20:35 (50 flights) next.

Departs 20:29137 flights43.2%
Departs 20:3550 flights15.8%

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 20:29 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 685 runs level with that at 71.9%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

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Against the route

DL 685 next to JFK to SAN

Every carrier on JFK to SAN combined arrived on time 78.0% of the time across 2,417 flights, so DL 685 is 6 points behind it. Delta flew 1,046 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.5% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 9 points.

DL 685 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 685thin sample	317	71.9%	57 min	2.52%	C
All Delta Air Lines on JFK–SAN	1,046	75.5%	54 min	3.15%	B−
All carriers on JFK–SAN	2,417	78.0%	60 min	2.85%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,039,517	81.1%	71 min	1.74%	B

Across the year

DL 685 quarter by quarter

DL 685 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 84.9% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 57.6%, a swing of 27 points on roughly 79 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 202526 flights—
Oct–Dec 202580 flights75.0%
Jan–Mar 202660 flights84.9%
Apr–Jun 202689 flights71.6%
Jul–Sep 202662 flights57.6%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 685 did best on Friday at 79.6% on time and worst on Sunday at 56.5%. Each day rests on about 45 flights, so a gap of 23 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Arrival by arrival

How late DL 685 runs when it is late

DL 685 often beats the schedule: 122 of 302 completed flights, 40%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 85 late arrivals split 34 under half an hour, 24 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 27 an hour or more.

15+ min early122 flights40.4%
Within 15 min95 flights31.5%
15–29 min late34 flights11.3%
30–59 min late24 flights7.9%
1–2 hours late16 flights5.3%
2+ hours late11 flights3.6%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 302 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 78 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 26 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 33 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at SAN.

The worst days

Worst days for DL 685

The latest arrival of the period was on 5 July 2026, 4 hours 8 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.

The latest arrivals of DL 685 in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
5 July 2026	4 hours 8 minutes	Carrier
30 October 2025	3 hours 32 minutes	National Airspace System
20 August 2026	3 hours 19 minutes	Carrier
7 August 2026	3 hours 1 minute	Late-arriving aircraft
31 July 2026	2 hours 46 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why DL 685 runs late

National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 4,835 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

National Airspace System
43%
Carrier
32%
Late-arriving aircraft
22%
Security
2%
Extreme weather
1%

43% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 2,091 minutes out of 4,835, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,835 delay minutes reported on DL 685.

Cancellations run at 2.52%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

8.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,446 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 GPT to ATL (1), but none flew often enough under DL 685 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to JFK to SAN only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 317 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 685

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 685: 2.52% of its 317 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures