Flight number record
DL 809
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to San Jose
- Route
- ATL → SJC
- Departs
- 09:40
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 13 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 50 minutes. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 809's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 127 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.2%
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.
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Schedule
When DL 809 flies
DL 809 flies ATL to SJC without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:40, used on 55 of 365 flights, with 10:33 (37 flights) next.
- Departs 09:4055 flights15.1%
- Departs 10:3337 flights10.1%
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 09:40 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 83.9%, and DL 809 runs 6 points better at 90.0%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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Against the route
DL 809 next to ATL to SJC
Every carrier on ATL to SJC combined arrived on time 85.8% of the time across 898 flights, so DL 809 is 4 points ahead of it. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 9 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 809 | 365 | 90.0% | 50 min | 1.10% | A |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–SJC | 898 | 85.8% | 58 min | 1.22% | A |
| All carriers on ATL–SJC | 898 | 85.8% | 58 min | 1.22% | A |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 809 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter DL 809 held fairly steady: 90.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 91.1% in Oct–Dec 2025, 88.8% in Jan–Mar 2026, 89.9% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 90.3% in Jul–Sep 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 202530 flights90.0%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.1%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights88.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights89.9%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights90.3%
Scale runs 80% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 809 ranged from 86.0% on Saturday to 94.1% on Wednesday. With about 52 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 809 runs when it is late
DL 809 often beats the schedule: 117 of 360 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 36 late arrivals split 15 under half an hour, 13 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 8 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early117 flights32.5%
- Within 15 min207 flights57.5%
- 15–29 min late15 flights4.2%
- 30–59 min late13 flights3.6%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.7%
- 2+ hours late2 flights0.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 360 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
6 of 28 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. 14 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 809
The latest arrival of the period was on 10 January 2026, 3 hours 48 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 10 January 2026 | 3 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 March 2026 | 2 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 September 2025 | 1 hour 58 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 November 2025 | 1 hour 31 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 January 2026 | 1 hour 31 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 809 runs late
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 1,786 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 905 of the 1,786 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,786 delay minutes reported on DL 809.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, 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 2.2% 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 2,116 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, 90.8% 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.
| Also flown as | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SJC to ATLthin sample | 364 | 90.8% | 63 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: 90.0% on time and 1.10% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to SJC, every carrier and departure
- SJC to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 933 on the same route85.1%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International (SJC) 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.