Flight number record
DL 740
Delta Air Lines · New York to Seattle
- Route
- JFK → SEA
- Departs
- 16:40
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 740, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 740 sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 740 runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 87 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.29%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
9.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 740 flies
DL 740 flies JFK to SEA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:40, used on 72 of 365 flights, with 16:50 (55 flights) and 16:55 (52 flights) next.
- Departs 16:4072 flights19.7%
- Departs 16:5055 flights15.1%
- Departs 16:5552 flights14.2%
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 16:40 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 740 runs 3 points worse at 68.6%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
DL 740 next to JFK to SEA
Every carrier on JFK to SEA combined arrived on time 69.5% of the time across 2,906 flights, so DL 740 is about level with it. Delta flew 1,339 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 71.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 13 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 740 | 365 | 68.6% | 64 min | 3.29% | C− |
| All Delta Air Lines on JFK–SEA | 1,339 | 71.4% | 60 min | 3.21% | C− |
| All carriers on JFK–SEA | 2,906 | 69.5% | 65 min | 3.44% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 740 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 740 held fairly steady: 62.2% in Oct–Dec 2025, 66.3% in Jan–Mar 2026, 71.9% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 69.6% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 10 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights62.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights66.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights71.9%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights69.6%
Scale runs 55% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 740 did best on Saturday at 78.0% on time and worst on Sunday at 52.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 26 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 740 runs when it is late
DL 740 often beats the schedule: 101 of 350 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 110 late arrivals split 43 under half an hour, 35 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 32 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early101 flights28.9%
- Within 15 min139 flights39.7%
- 15–29 min late43 flights12.3%
- 30–59 min late35 flights10.0%
- 1–2 hours late20 flights5.7%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 350 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
14 of 67 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 57 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 SEA.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 740
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 June 2026, 7 hours 51 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.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 11 June 2026 | 7 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 June 2026 | 5 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 October 2025 | 4 hours 49 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 March 2026 | 4 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 August 2026 | 4 hours 10 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 740 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 7,086 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 33%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
46% 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 3,243 minutes out of 7,086, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 7,086 delay minutes reported on DL 740.
Cancellations run at 3.29%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 2,422 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.
Every one of the 365 flights under DL 740 in the data flew JFK to SEA. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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 740
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 740: 3.29% of its 365 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to SEA, every carrier and departure
- SEA to JFK, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 699 on the same route73.5%
- Alaska Airlines 31 on the same route71.9%
- Delta Air Lines 688 on the same route64.4%
- Alaska Airlines 21 on the same route69.0%
- Alaska Airlines 23 on the same route78.1%
- Alaska Airlines 17 on the same route50.4%
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.