Flight number record
DL 742
Delta Air Lines · New York to Los Angeles
- Route
- JFK → LAX
- Departs
- 07:00
- Flights
- 329
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 742, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 742 sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 329 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 322 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.13%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 329 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 742 flies
DL 742 flies JFK to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 209 of 329 flights.
- Departs 07:00209 flights63.5%
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 07:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 742 runs 14 points worse at 75.5%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
DL 742 next to JFK to LAX
Every carrier on JFK to LAX combined arrived on time 75.4% of the time across 10,285 flights, so DL 742 is about level with it. Delta flew 3,366 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.3% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 6 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 742thin sample | 329 | 75.5% | 70 min | 2.13% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on JFK–LAX | 3,366 | 75.3% | 67 min | 2.55% | B |
| All carriers on JFK–LAX | 10,285 | 75.4% | 78 min | 2.78% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 742 quarter by quarter
DL 742 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 80.6% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 59.3%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 82 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 202530 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights78.7%
- Jan–Mar 202675 flights80.6%
- Apr–Jun 202678 flights75.6%
- Jul–Sep 202657 flights59.3%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 742 did best on Tuesday at 84.3% on time and worst on Sunday at 61.5%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 23 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 742 runs when it is late
DL 742 often beats the schedule: 98 of 322 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 79 late arrivals split 30 under half an hour, 21 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 28 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early98 flights30.4%
- Within 15 min145 flights45.0%
- 15–29 min late30 flights9.3%
- 30–59 min late21 flights6.5%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights4.3%
- 2+ hours late14 flights4.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 322 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
10 of 46 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. In the other direction, 43 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 LAX.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 742
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 August 2026, 4 hours 56 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 August 2026 | 4 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 July 2026 | 4 hours 39 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 September 2025 | 4 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 July 2026 | 3 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 September 2025 | 3 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 742 runs late
Carrier accounts for 63% of the 5,513 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 63%Carrier
- 32%National Airspace System
- 3%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 63%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,480 of the 5,513 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,513 delay minutes reported on DL 742.
Cancellations sit at 2.13% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.7% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,475 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 JFK to DTW (5), but none flew often enough under DL 742 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to JFK to LAX only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 329 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 742
For a booking, read DL 742 as 75.5% on time with 2.13% cancelled over 329 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to LAX, every carrier and departure
- LAX to JFK, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 738 on the same route72.7%
- American Airlines 171 on the same route88.1%
- Delta Air Lines 773 on the same route78.6%
- American Airlines 117 on the same route69.1%
- American Airlines 255 on the same route78.3%
- American Airlines 341 on the same route76.4%
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) 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
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.