Flight number record

DL 842

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Phoenix

Route: ATL → PHX
Departs: 21:59
Flights: 340
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 340 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so DL 842 runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 50 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 336 completed flights

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.18%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

6.0%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 340 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

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 96 of 340 flights, with 21:25 (43 flights) and 21:20 (40 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 21:5996 flights28.2%
Departs 21:2543 flights12.6%
Departs 21:2040 flights11.8%

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 21:59 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 842 runs 2 points better at 72.6%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

Against the route

DL 842 next to ATL to PHX

Every carrier on ATL to PHX combined arrived on time 75.4% of the time across 3,762 flights, so DL 842 is 3 points behind it. Delta flew 2,301 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.0% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 9 points.

DL 842 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 842thin sample	340	72.6%	54 min	1.18%	C
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–PHX	2,301	76.0%	59 min	0.87%	B+
All carriers on ATL–PHX	3,762	75.4%	63 min	0.72%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 842 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter DL 842 held fairly steady: 67.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 75.6% in Oct–Dec 2025, 71.8% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 76.8% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 10 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202592 flights67.0%
Oct–Dec 202580 flights75.6%
Jan–Mar 202686 flights71.8%
Apr–Jun 202682 flights76.8%

Scale runs 60% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 842 did best on Saturday at 87.0% on time and worst on Friday at 62.0%. Each day rests on about 49 flights, so a gap of 25 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 842 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 57% of the 4,927 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
57%
National Airspace System
18%
Late-arriving aircraft
16%
Extreme weather
8%
Security
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, 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 2,813 of the 4,927 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,927 delay minutes reported on DL 842.

Cancellations sit at 1.18% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

6.0% 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 roughly 55 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. 340 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 72.6% on time with 1.18% cancelled over 340 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular 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