Flight number record
DL 896
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to San Diego
- Route
- ATL → SAN
- Departs
- 21:28
- Flights
- 329
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 896, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 896 lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average. That rests on 329 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
76.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 320 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.13%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 329 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 896 flies
DL 896 flies ATL to SAN without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:28, used on 55 of 329 flights, with 21:40 (46 flights) and 20:50 (35 flights) next.
- Departs 21:2855 flights16.7%
- Departs 21:4046 flights14.0%
- Departs 20:5035 flights10.6%
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 21:28 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 896 runs 7 points better at 76.6%. 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 896 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 896 is 2 points behind 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 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 896thin sample | 329 | 76.6% | 47 min | 2.13% | 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 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 Oct–Dec 2025 at 71.4%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 82 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 202512 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202575 flights71.4%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights81.4%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights79.1%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights72.1%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 896 did best on Wednesday at 88.1% on time and worst on Thursday at 63.8%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 24 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 896 runs when it is late
DL 896 often beats the schedule: 87 of 320 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 41 of the 75 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 15 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early87 flights27.2%
- Within 15 min158 flights49.4%
- 15–29 min late41 flights12.8%
- 30–59 min late19 flights5.9%
- 1–2 hours late13 flights4.1%
- 2+ hours late2 flights0.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 320 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
21 of 79 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 27% of them. In the other direction, 17 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 896
The latest arrival of the period was on 4 December 2025, 9 hours 55 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 4 December 2025 | 9 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 3 hours 13 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 30 October 2025 | 1 hour 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 June 2026 | 1 hour 26 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 August 2026 | 1 hour 24 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 896 runs late
Carrier accounts for 49% of the 3,550 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,745 of the 3,550 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,550 delay minutes reported on DL 896.
Cancellations sit at 2.13% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.61%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.7% 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 1,892 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 329 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. 329 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 76.6% on time with 2.13% cancelled over 329 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 712 on the same route80.1%
- Delta Air Lines 843 on the same route77.2%
- 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.