Flight number record

DL 802

Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to Detroit

Route: LAX → DTW
Departs: 11:55
Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 802, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 802 lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 365 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

On time

77.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights

Avg delay

55 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.55%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

6.6%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 802 flies

DL 802 flies LAX to DTW without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 11:55, used on 97 of 365 flights, with 12:00 (56 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 11:5597 flights26.6%
Departs 12:0056 flights15.3%

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 11:55 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and DL 802 runs level with that at 77.3%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

DL 802 next to LAX to DTW

Every carrier on LAX to DTW combined arrived on time 82.7% of the time across 2,528 flights, so DL 802 is 5 points behind it. Delta flew 1,979 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 83.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 4 points.

DL 802 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 802	365	77.3%	55 min	0.55%	B+
All Delta Air Lines on LAX–DTW	1,979	83.6%	62 min	0.76%	B+
All carriers on LAX–DTW	2,528	82.7%	68 min	1.03%	B
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 802 quarter by quarter

DL 802 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 85.9% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 65.2%, a swing of 21 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 202592 flights85.9%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights82.2%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights65.2%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights75.8%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 802 did best on Tuesday at 84.9% on time and worst on Monday at 72.5%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 12 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 802 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 50% of the 4,513 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
50%
Late-arriving aircraft
34%
National Airspace System
16%

34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 4,513 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 4,513 delay minutes reported on DL 802.

Cancellations are rare at 0.55%, 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

6.6% 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 1,979 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 365 flights under DL 802 in the data flew LAX to DTW. 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. 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.

What to do with this

Booking DL 802

For a booking, DL 802 is one of the weaker ways to fly LAX to DTW: 5 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