Flight number record

DL 791

Delta Air Lines · New York to Phoenix

Route: JFK → PHX
Departs: 08:00
Flights: 365
Period: September 2025 to August 2026

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 791, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 791 lands a B−, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 791's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

81.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights

Avg delay

50 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.84%

National rate is 1.89%

1 hour+ late

4.3%

National rate is 8.3%

These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.

Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Schedule

When DL 791 flies

DL 791 flies JFK to PHX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 08:00, used on 172 of 365 flights, with 08:05 (121 flights) next.

Departs 08:00172 flights47.1%
Departs 08:05121 flights33.2%

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 08:00 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 791 runs 3 points worse at 81.4%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Against the route

DL 791 next to JFK to PHX

Every carrier on JFK to PHX combined arrived on time 76.2% of the time across 3,097 flights, so DL 791 is 5 points ahead of it. Delta flew 919 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 72.7% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, close to this flight's figure.

DL 791 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 791	365	81.4%	50 min	3.84%	B−
All Delta Air Lines on JFK–PHX	919	72.7%	62 min	3.48%	C−
All carriers on JFK–PHX	3,097	76.2%	78 min	3.26%	B−
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,039,517	81.1%	71 min	1.74%	B

Across the year

DL 791 quarter by quarter

DL 791 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 74.1%, a swing of 23 points on roughly 73 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 flights96.7%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights74.1%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights82.1%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.6%
Jul–Sep 202662 flights78.3%

Scale runs 65% to 100%.

By weekday, DL 791 did best on Wednesday at 87.8% on time and worst on Tuesday at 74.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Arrival by arrival

How late DL 791 runs when it is late

DL 791 often beats the schedule: 128 of 350 completed flights, 37%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 65 late arrivals split 25 under half an hour, 25 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 15 an hour or more.

15+ min early128 flights36.6%
Within 15 min157 flights44.9%
15–29 min late25 flights7.1%
30–59 min late25 flights7.1%
1–2 hours late9 flights2.6%
2+ hours late6 flights1.7%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 350 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 42 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 15 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 38 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 PHX.

The worst days

Worst days for DL 791

The latest arrival of the period was on 1 January 2026, 3 hours 49 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in November 2025.

The latest arrivals of DL 791 in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
1 January 2026	3 hours 49 minutes	Carrier
4 July 2026	3 hours 7 minutes	National Airspace System
11 November 2025	2 hours 40 minutes	Carrier
9 November 2025	2 hours 26 minutes	Carrier
4 November 2025	2 hours 8 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why DL 791 runs late

National Airspace System accounts for 51% of the 3,249 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

National Airspace System
51%
Carrier
45%
Late-arriving aircraft
3%
Extreme weather
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,454 of the 3,249 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,249 delay minutes reported on DL 791.

Cancellations run at 3.84%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.3% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

At 2,153 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.

DL 791 is not only a JFK to PHX flight. It also flew PHX to JFK (268 flights, 76.8% on time) often enough to be scored on its own. Airlines attach one number to several legs of an aircraft's day, and each leg keeps its own record here, so check which city pair is on your booking before reading a rate.

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.

Other routes flown as DL 791
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
PHX to JFKthin sample	268	76.8%	71 min	4.10%	B−

What to do with this

Booking DL 791

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 791: 3.84% of its 365 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 50 minutes, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures