Flight number record

DL 901

Delta Air Lines · Phoenix to Atlanta

Route: PHX → ATL
Departs: 07:00
Flights: 364
Period: September 2025 to August 2026

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 901, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 901 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 12 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.6 hours. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 901's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 121 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

89.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 357 completed flights

Avg delay

158 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.37%

National rate is 1.89%

1 hour+ late

6.2%

National rate is 8.3%

These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 901 flies

DL 901 flies PHX to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 84 of 364 flights, with 07:30 (67 flights) and 07:05 (65 flights) next.

Departs 07:0084 flights23.1%
Departs 07:3067 flights18.4%
Departs 07:0565 flights17.9%

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 901 runs level with that at 89.4%. 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 901 next to PHX to ATL

Every carrier on PHX to ATL combined arrived on time 80.7% of the time across 3,696 flights, so DL 901 is 9 points ahead of it. Delta flew 2,283 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 85.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight beats by 8 points.

DL 901 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 901thin sample	364	89.4%	158 min	1.37%	A
All Delta Air Lines on PHX–ATL	2,283	85.4%	102 min	1.01%	A
All carriers on PHX–ATL	3,696	80.7%	78 min	0.87%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,039,517	81.1%	71 min	1.74%	B

Across the year

DL 901 quarter by quarter

DL 901 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 92.2% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 79.7%, a swing of 13 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 flights90.0%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights92.2%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights89.8%
Apr–Jun 202690 flights92.2%
Jul–Sep 202662 flights79.7%

Scale runs 70% to 100%.

By weekday, DL 901 ranged from 84.3% on Thursday to 93.9% on Monday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 10 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Arrival by arrival

How late DL 901 runs when it is late

DL 901 often beats the schedule: 126 of 357 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When DL 901 is late it tends to be very late: 22 of its 38 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 15 were two hours or more.

15+ min early126 flights35.3%
Within 15 min193 flights54.1%
15–29 min late11 flights3.1%
30–59 min late5 flights1.4%
1–2 hours late7 flights2.0%
2+ hours late15 flights4.2%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 357 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

6 of 40 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. Only 4 left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for DL 901

The latest arrival of the period was on 26 July 2026, 12 hours 12 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in July 2026.

The latest arrivals of DL 901 in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
26 July 2026	12 hours 12 minutes	Carrier
27 January 2026	11 hours 8 minutes	Carrier
14 June 2026	8 hours 20 minutes	Carrier
23 July 2026	8 hours 18 minutes	Carrier
25 July 2026	8 hours 15 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why DL 901 runs late

Carrier accounts for 79% of the 5,993 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Carrier
79%
National Airspace System
8%
Extreme weather
8%
Late-arriving aircraft
5%

The largest share of delay minutes, 79%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,749 of the 5,993 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,993 delay minutes reported on DL 901.

Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

6.2% 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 2.6 hours, 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.

Every one of the 364 flights under DL 901 in the data flew PHX to ATL. 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. 364 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 901

For a booking, DL 901 has one of the better records a US domestic flight can show: 89.4% on time and 1.37% cancelled. That is a base rate, not a promise about any single 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures