Flight number record

DL 709

Delta Air Lines · New York to San Diego

Route: JFK → SAN
Departs: 17:25
Flights: 255
Period: September 2025 to August 2026

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 709, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 709 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 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 255 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

On time

74.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 239 completed flights

Avg delay

61 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

5.10%

National rate is 1.89%

1 hour+ late

8.8%

National rate is 8.3%

These figures cover 255 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.

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Schedule

When DL 709 flies

DL 709 flies JFK to SAN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:25, used on 90 of 255 flights, with 17:30 (79 flights) and 17:40 (43 flights) next.

Departs 17:2590 flights35.3%
Departs 17:3079 flights31.0%
Departs 17:4043 flights16.9%

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 17:25 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 709 runs 7 points better at 74.5%. 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 709 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 709 is 4 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 7 points.

DL 709 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 709thin sample	255	74.5%	61 min	5.10%	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 709 quarter by quarter

DL 709 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 79.5% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 69.0%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 85 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.

Oct–Dec 202512 flights—
Jan–Mar 202690 flights69.0%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights79.5%
Jul–Sep 202662 flights75.0%

Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 709 did best on Saturday at 84.8% on time and worst on Friday at 63.6%. Each day rests on about 36 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Arrival by arrival

How late DL 709 runs when it is late

DL 709 often beats the schedule: 87 of 239 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 61 late arrivals split 15 under half an hour, 25 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 21 an hour or more.

15+ min early87 flights36.4%
Within 15 min91 flights38.1%
15–29 min late15 flights6.3%
30–59 min late25 flights10.5%
1–2 hours late15 flights6.3%
2+ hours late6 flights2.5%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 239 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

18 of 62 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 29% of them. In the other direction, 17 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 709

The latest arrival of the period was on 20 August 2026, 3 hours 41 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 709 in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
20 August 2026	3 hours 41 minutes	Carrier
3 March 2026	3 hours 30 minutes	Carrier
13 July 2026	3 hours 22 minutes	Carrier
11 June 2026	2 hours 28 minutes	National Airspace System
10 June 2026	2 hours 14 minutes	National Airspace System

Delay causes

Why DL 709 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 3,708 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
42%
National Airspace System
40%
Late-arriving aircraft
18%
Extreme weather
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,540 of the 3,708 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,708 delay minutes reported on DL 709.

Cancellations run at 5.10%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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

8.8% 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 four other city pairs in the data, including SAN to JFK (118), SFO to ATL (74) and BIS to MSP (10), but none flew often enough under DL 709 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. 255 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 709

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 709: 5.10% of its 255 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