Flight number record

DL 896

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to San Diego

Route: ATL → SAN
Departs: 21:59
Flights: 296
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 896, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 896 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 296 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

On time

74.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 287 completed flights

Avg delay

52 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.36%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

5.9%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 296 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Schedule

When DL 896 flies

DL 896 flies ATL to SAN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:59, used on 54 of 296 flights, with 21:40 (46 flights) and 21:15 (35 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 21:5954 flights18.2%
Departs 21:4046 flights15.5%
Departs 21:1535 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 896 runs 4 points better at 74.6%. 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 896 next to ATL to SAN

Every carrier on ATL to SAN combined arrived on time 78.8% of the time across 2,413 flights, so DL 896 is 4 points behind it. Delta flew 2,172 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 78.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 7 points.

DL 896 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 896thin sample	296	74.6%	52 min	2.36%	C
All Delta Air Lines on ATL–SAN	2,172	78.4%	48 min	0.69%	B+
All carriers on ATL–SAN	2,413	78.8%	47 min	0.62%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 896 quarter by quarter

DL 896 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 81.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 55.0%, a swing of 26 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 202541 flights55.0%
Oct–Dec 202575 flights71.4%
Jan–Mar 202689 flights81.4%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights79.1%

Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 896 did best on Wednesday at 87.9% on time and worst on Thursday at 61.4%. Each day rests on about 42 flights, so a gap of 27 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 896 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 56% of the 3,770 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
56%
Late-arriving aircraft
23%
National Airspace System
16%
Extreme weather
5%

The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, 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 2,098 of the 3,770 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,770 delay minutes reported on DL 896.

Cancellations sit at 2.36% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.68%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

5.9% 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 50 minutes, 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.

Every one of the 296 flights under DL 896 in the data flew ATL to SAN. 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. 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 896

For a booking, read DL 896 as 74.6% on time with 2.36% cancelled over 296 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