Flight number record
DL 771
Delta Air Lines · New York to Los Angeles
- Route
- JFK → LAX
- Departs
- 17:00
- Flights
- 350
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 771, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 771 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 350 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 341 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.57%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.8%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 350 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 771 flies
DL 771 flies JFK to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 17:00, used on 61 of 350 flights, with 16:55 (54 flights) next.
- Departs 17:0061 flights17.4%
- Departs 16:5554 flights15.4%
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 17:00 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 771 runs 6 points better at 74.2%. 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 771 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 771 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 7 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 771thin sample | 350 | 74.2% | 60 min | 2.57% | C |
| 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 771 quarter by quarter
DL 771 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 80.2% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 69.8%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 70 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 flights73.3%
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights75.0%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights80.2%
- Apr–Jun 202688 flights69.8%
- Jul–Sep 202654 flights70.6%
Scale runs 60% to 85%.
By weekday, DL 771 ranged from 69.4% on Thursday to 76.9% on Monday. With about 50 flights behind each day, a spread of 8 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 771 runs when it is late
DL 771 often beats the schedule: 122 of 341 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 88 late arrivals split 32 under half an hour, 26 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 30 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early122 flights35.8%
- Within 15 min131 flights38.4%
- 15–29 min late32 flights9.4%
- 30–59 min late26 flights7.6%
- 1–2 hours late20 flights5.9%
- 2+ hours late10 flights2.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 341 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
11 of 55 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. In the other direction, 44 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 771
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 August 2026, 5 hours 30 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 August 2026 | 5 hours 30 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 18 July 2026 | 3 hours 52 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 11 July 2026 | 3 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 June 2026 | 3 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 March 2026 | 2 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 771 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 51% of the 5,298 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%National Airspace System
- 34%Carrier
- 8%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
51% 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 2,683 minutes out of 5,298, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,298 delay minutes reported on DL 771.
Cancellations run at 2.57%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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 2,475 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.
Every one of the 350 flights under DL 771 in the data flew JFK to LAX. 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. 350 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 771
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 771: 2.57% of its 350 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 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
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.