Flight number record
DL 842
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Phoenix
- Route
- ATL → PHX
- Departs
- 21:59
- Flights
- 315
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 842, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 842 sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 315 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so DL 842 runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 312 completed flights
Avg delay
45 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 315 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Schedule
When DL 842 flies
DL 842 flies ATL to PHX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:59, used on 75 of 315 flights, with 21:25 (43 flights) and 21:20 (40 flights) next.
- Departs 21:5975 flights23.8%
- Departs 21:2543 flights13.7%
- Departs 21:2040 flights12.7%
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 21:59 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 842 runs 3 points better at 72.8%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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Against the route
DL 842 next to ATL to PHX
Every carrier on ATL to PHX combined arrived on time 75.2% of the time across 3,693 flights, so DL 842 is 2 points behind it. Delta flew 2,280 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 842thin sample | 315 | 72.8% | 45 min | 0.95% | C+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–PHX | 2,280 | 75.9% | 57 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| All carriers on ATL–PHX | 3,693 | 75.2% | 63 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 842 quarter by quarter
DL 842 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 76.8% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 59.5%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 63 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 flights73.3%
- Oct–Dec 202580 flights75.6%
- Jan–Mar 202686 flights71.8%
- Apr–Jun 202682 flights76.8%
- Jul–Sep 202637 flights59.5%
Scale runs 50% to 80%.
By weekday, DL 842 did best on Saturday at 86.8% on time and worst on Friday at 62.0%. Each day rests on about 45 flights, so a gap of 25 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 842 runs when it is late
The 85 late arrivals split 41 under half an hour, 28 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 16 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early55 flights17.6%
- Within 15 min172 flights55.1%
- 15–29 min late41 flights13.1%
- 30–59 min late28 flights9.0%
- 1–2 hours late12 flights3.8%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 312 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
21 of 87 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 19 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 842
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 March 2026, 4 hours 16 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 March 2026 | 4 hours 16 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 2 May 2026 | 2 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 February 2026 | 2 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 March 2026 | 2 hours 6 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 26 September 2025 | 1 hour 48 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 842 runs late
Carrier accounts for 50% of the 3,811 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,891 of the 3,811 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,811 delay minutes reported on DL 842.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.1% 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 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,587 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.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including SEA to DTW (16), but none flew often enough under DL 842 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ATL to PHX only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 315 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 842
For a booking, read DL 842 as 72.8% on time with 0.95% cancelled over 315 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to PHX, every carrier and departure
- PHX to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 836 on the same route69.9%
- Delta Air Lines 348 on the same route80.1%
- Delta Air Lines 757 on the same route70.2%
- Delta Air Lines 796 on the same route79.6%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) 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.