Flight number record
DL 838
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to West Palm Beach
- Route
- ATL → PBI
- Departs
- 13:59
- Flights
- 334
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 838, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 838 lands a B, about a point 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 an hour on average. That rests on 334 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 328 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.20%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 334 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 2 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 838 flies
DL 838 flies ATL to PBI without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 13:59, used on 134 of 334 flights, with 13:58 (47 flights) next.
- Departs 13:59134 flights40.1%
- Departs 13:5847 flights14.1%
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 13:59 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 838 runs level with that at 78.4%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
DL 838 next to ATL to PBI
Every carrier on ATL to PBI combined arrived on time 75.8% of the time across 3,475 flights, so DL 838 is 3 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,402 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 838thin sample | 334 | 78.4% | 58 min | 1.20% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–PBI | 3,402 | 76.4% | 52 min | 1.62% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–PBI | 3,475 | 75.8% | 54 min | 1.61% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 838 quarter by quarter
DL 838 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 70.0%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 67 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 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights82.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights76.7%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights75.8%
- Jul–Sep 202631 flights70.0%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 838 did best on Wednesday at 91.7% on time and worst on Sunday at 70.5%. Each day rests on about 48 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 838 runs when it is late
The 71 late arrivals split 28 under half an hour, 23 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early33 flights10.1%
- Within 15 min224 flights68.3%
- 15–29 min late28 flights8.5%
- 30–59 min late23 flights7.0%
- 1–2 hours late17 flights5.2%
- 2+ hours late3 flights0.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 328 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
9 of 63 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. In the other direction, 17 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 PBI.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 838
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 June 2026, 12 hours 12 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 June 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 June 2026 | 12 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 June 2026 | 3 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 April 2026 | 2 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 June 2026 | 1 hour 58 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 March 2026 | 1 hour 48 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 838 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 42% of the 4,088 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 40%Carrier
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,642 of the 4,088 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,088 delay minutes reported on DL 838.
Cancellations sit at 1.20% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.60%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
6.1% 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.
The 545 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
DL 838 is not only a ATL to PBI flight. It also flew PBI to ATL (330 flights, 72.1% 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. 334 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PBI to ATLthin sample | 330 | 72.1% | 62 min | 2.12% | C |
What to do with this
Booking DL 838
For a booking, read DL 838 as 78.4% on time with 1.20% cancelled over 334 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to PBI, every carrier and departure
- PBI to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 1527 on the same route82.7%
- Delta Air Lines 959 on the same route73.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1190 on the same route80.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1606 on the same route69.2%
- Delta Air Lines 1458 on the same route74.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1311 on the same route88.8%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Palm Beach International (PBI) 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.