Flight number record

DL 740

Delta Air Lines · New York to Seattle

Route: JFK → SEA
Departs: 16:40
Flights: 364
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 740 runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 79 extra late arrivals.

On time

69.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 353 completed flights

Avg delay

70 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.20%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

9.6%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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 740 flies

DL 740 flies JFK to SEA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:40, used on 92 of 364 flights, with 16:59 (55 flights) and 16:55 (52 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 16:4092 flights25.3%
Departs 16:5955 flights15.1%
Departs 16:5552 flights14.3%

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 16:40 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 72.4%, and DL 740 runs 3 points worse at 69.7%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

DL 740 next to JFK to SEA

Every carrier on JFK to SEA combined arrived on time 69.7% of the time across 2,906 flights, so DL 740 is about level with it. Delta flew 1,338 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 73.2% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 12 points.

DL 740 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 740thin sample	364	69.7%	70 min	2.20%	C
All Delta Air Lines on JFK–SEA	1,338	73.2%	57 min	2.32%	C
All carriers on JFK–SEA	2,906	69.7%	61 min	2.58%	C
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 740 quarter by quarter

DL 740 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 78.4% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 62.2%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 91 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 202591 flights78.4%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights62.2%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights66.3%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights71.9%

Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 740 did best on Saturday at 78.4% on time and worst on Sunday at 55.1%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 23 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 740 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 49% of the 7,484 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.

National Airspace System
49%
Carrier
29%
Late-arriving aircraft
21%
Extreme weather
1%

49% 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 3,692 minutes out of 7,484, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 7,484 delay minutes reported on DL 740.

Cancellations sit at 2.20% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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 364 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. 364 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, read DL 740 as 69.7% on time with 2.20% cancelled over 364 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