Flight number record
DL 843
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to San Diego
- Route
- ATL → SAN
- Departs
- 14:40
- Flights
- 296
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 843, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 843 lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 296 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 294 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.34%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.8%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 296 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 843 flies
DL 843 flies ATL to SAN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 14:40, used on 36 of 296 flights, with 15:40 (36 flights) and 13:40 (33 flights) next.
- Departs 14:4036 flights12.2%
- Departs 15:4036 flights12.2%
- Departs 13:4033 flights11.1%
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 14:40 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 843 runs 5 points better at 77.2%. 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 843 next to ATL to SAN
Every carrier on ATL to SAN combined arrived on time 78.2% of the time across 2,353 flights, so DL 843 is about level with it. Delta flew 2,173 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 77.8% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 843thin sample | 296 | 77.2% | 58 min | 0.34% | B+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–SAN | 2,173 | 77.8% | 47 min | 0.69% | B+ |
| All carriers on ATL–SAN | 2,353 | 78.2% | 46 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 843 quarter by quarter
DL 843 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 63.2%, a swing of 24 points on roughly 74 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 flights80.0%
- Jan–Mar 202628 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202689 flights75.3%
- Jul–Sep 202657 flights63.2%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 843 did best on Tuesday at 85.4% on time and worst on Monday at 67.4%. Each day rests on about 42 flights, so a gap of 18 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 843 runs when it is late
The 67 late arrivals split 26 under half an hour, 21 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early60 flights20.4%
- Within 15 min167 flights56.8%
- 15–29 min late26 flights8.8%
- 30–59 min late21 flights7.1%
- 1–2 hours late12 flights4.1%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 294 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
9 of 57 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% 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 SAN.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 843
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 August 2026, 4 hours 46 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across August, December, November and July, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 August 2026 | 4 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 August 2026 | 3 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 3 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 November 2025 | 3 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 July 2026 | 2 hours 13 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why DL 843 runs late
Carrier accounts for 44% of the 3,856 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,699 of the 3,856 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,856 delay minutes reported on DL 843.
Cancellations are rare at 0.34%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
6.8% 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.
At 1,892 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 two other city pairs in the data, including DFW to SLC (62) and SLC to DFW (4), but none flew often enough under DL 843 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ATL to SAN only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 296 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 843
For a booking, read DL 843 as 77.2% on time with 0.34% cancelled over 296 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to SAN, every carrier and departure
- SAN to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 725 on the same route87.5%
- Delta Air Lines 896 on the same route76.6%
- Delta Air Lines 712 on the same route80.1%
- Delta Air Lines 894 on the same route78.0%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- San Diego International (SAN) 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.