Flight number record

DL 743

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Sacramento

Route: ATL → SMF
Departs: 17:59
Flights: 287
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 743, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 743 lands a B+, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 287 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

On time

76.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 285 completed flights

Avg delay

55 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.70%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

7.4%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 287 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Schedule

When DL 743 flies

DL 743 flies ATL to SMF without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:59, used on 120 of 287 flights, with 18:00 (33 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 17:59120 flights41.8%
Departs 18:0033 flights11.5%

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 17:59 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and DL 743 runs 8 points better at 76.1%. 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 743 next to ATL to SMF

Every carrier on ATL to SMF combined arrived on time 82.4% of the time across 1,009 flights, so DL 743 is 6 points behind it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 6 points.

DL 743 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 743thin sample	287	76.1%	55 min	0.70%	B+
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–SMF	1,009	82.4%	53 min	1.29%	B
All carriers on ATL–SMF	1,009	82.4%	53 min	1.29%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 743 quarter by quarter

DL 743 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 89.0% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 68.8%, a swing of 20 points on roughly 72 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 202563 flights69.8%
Oct–Dec 202570 flights76.8%
Jan–Mar 202674 flights89.0%
Apr–Jun 202680 flights68.8%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 743 did best on Wednesday at 87.2% on time and worst on Sunday at 65.9%. Each day rests on about 41 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 743 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 3,757 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.

Carrier
46%
Late-arriving aircraft
25%
National Airspace System
20%
Extreme weather
9%

The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,736 of the 3,757 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,757 delay minutes reported on DL 743.

Cancellations are rare at 0.70%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

7.4% 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 2,092 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 SMF to ATL (41), but none flew often enough under DL 743 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ATL to SMF only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 287 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 743

For a booking, DL 743 is one of the weaker ways to fly ATL to SMF: 6 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.

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