Flight number record

DL 685

Delta Air Lines · New York to San Diego

Route: JFK → SAN
Departs: 20:25
Flights: 307
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 307 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

On time

74.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 291 completed flights

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.93%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

8.2%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 307 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Schedule

When DL 685 flies

DL 685 flies JFK to SAN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 20:25, used on 81 of 307 flights, with 20:29 (75 flights) and 20:35 (50 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 20:2581 flights26.4%
Departs 20:2975 flights24.4%
Departs 20:3550 flights16.3%

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 20:25 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 685 runs 4 points better at 74.9%. 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 685 next to JFK to SAN

Every carrier on JFK to SAN combined arrived on time 79.1% of the time across 2,413 flights, so DL 685 is 4 points behind it. Delta flew 1,036 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 7 points.

DL 685 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 685thin sample	307	74.9%	57 min	2.93%	C
All Delta Air Lines on JFK–SAN	1,036	76.6%	57 min	2.80%	B
All carriers on JFK–SAN	2,413	79.1%	58 min	2.40%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	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 Apr–Jun 2026 at 71.6%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 77 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 202578 flights71.6%
Oct–Dec 202580 flights75.0%
Jan–Mar 202660 flights84.9%
Apr–Jun 202689 flights71.6%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 685 did best on Friday at 83.7% on time and worst on Sunday at 63.0%. Each day rests on about 44 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 685 runs late

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 4,139 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
37%
Carrier
31%
Late-arriving aircraft
27%
Security
2%
Extreme weather
2%

37% 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 1,530 minutes out of 4,139, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,139 delay minutes reported on DL 685.

Cancellations run at 2.93%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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

8.2% 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 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 (5), 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. 307 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: 2.93% of its 307 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures