Flight number record

DL 809

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to San Jose

Route: ATL → SJC
Departs: 09:25
Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 809, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 809 earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 12 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 50 minutes. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 809's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 121 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

89.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights

Avg delay

49 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

1.9%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 809 flies

DL 809 flies ATL to SJC without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:25, used on 49 of 365 flights, with 09:15 (40 flights) and 10:33 (37 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 09:2549 flights13.4%
Departs 09:1540 flights11.0%
Departs 10:3337 flights10.1%

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 09:25 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and DL 809 runs 6 points better at 89.7%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

DL 809 next to ATL to SJC

Every carrier on ATL to SJC combined arrived on time 86.9% of the time across 900 flights, so DL 809 is 3 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 8 points.

DL 809 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 809	365	89.7%	49 min	1.10%	A
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–SJC	900	86.9%	48 min	1.33%	A
All carriers on ATL–SJC	900	86.9%	48 min	1.33%	A
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 809 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter DL 809 held fairly steady: 89.1% in Jul–Sep 2025, 91.1% in Oct–Dec 2025, 88.8% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 89.9% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 2 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202592 flights89.1%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.1%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights88.8%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights89.9%

Scale runs 80% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 809 did best on Friday at 94.2% on time and worst on Saturday at 80.0%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 809 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 53% of the 1,811 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
53%
National Airspace System
29%
Late-arriving aircraft
12%
Extreme weather
6%

The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, 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 956 of the 1,811 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,811 delay minutes reported on DL 809.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 1.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 2,116 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 809 is not only a ATL to SJC flight. It also flew SJC to ATL (364 flights, 92.8% 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 809
Also flown as	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SJC to ATLthin sample	364	92.8%	66 min	0.82%	A+

What to do with this

Booking DL 809

For a booking, DL 809 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 89.7% on time and 1.10% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.

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