Flight number record
DL 891
Delta Air Lines · Nashville to Los Angeles
- Route
- BNA → LAX
- Departs
- 07:00
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 891, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 891 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 an hour. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 891's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 128 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.82%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
2.8%
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 891 flies
DL 891 flies BNA to LAX without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 56 of 365 flights, with 07:37 (38 flights) next.
- Departs 07:0056 flights15.3%
- Departs 07:3738 flights10.4%
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 07:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 891 runs level with that at 90.1%. 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 891 next to BNA to LAX
Every carrier on BNA to LAX combined arrived on time 76.0% of the time across 2,332 flights, so DL 891 is 14 points ahead of it. Delta flew 911 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 84.1% on time. 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 891 | 365 | 90.1% | 63 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| All Delta Air Lines on BNA–LAX | 911 | 84.1% | 60 min | 1.10% | B |
| All carriers on BNA–LAX | 2,332 | 76.0% | 58 min | 0.77% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 891 quarter by quarter
DL 891 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 85.7%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 73 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 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights93.5%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights90.8%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights85.7%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights87.1%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 891 ranged from 84.6% on Monday to 96.2% on Friday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 12 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 891 runs when it is late
DL 891 often beats the schedule: 127 of 362 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 18 of the 36 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 10 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early127 flights35.1%
- Within 15 min199 flights55.0%
- 15–29 min late18 flights5.0%
- 30–59 min late8 flights2.2%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.7%
- 2+ hours late4 flights1.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 362 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
6 of 24 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. 18 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 891
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 August 2026, 6 hours 59 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 August 2026 | 6 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 March 2026 | 5 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 January 2026 | 3 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 August 2026 | 2 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 June 2026 | 1 hour 40 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 891 runs late
Carrier accounts for 74% of the 2,268 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 74%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 74%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,672 of the 2,268 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,268 delay minutes reported on DL 891.
Cancellations are rare at 0.82%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.8% 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 1,798 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.
Every one of the 365 flights under DL 891 in the data flew BNA to LAX. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
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.
What to do with this
Booking DL 891
For a booking, DL 891 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 90.1% on time and 0.82% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single day.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to LAX, every carrier and departure
- LAX to BNA, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 355 on the same route82.9%
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) 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.