Flight number record

DL 901

Delta Air Lines · Phoenix to Atlanta

Route: PHX → ATL
Departs: 07:00
Flights: 364
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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 15 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two 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 15 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 146 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

92.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights

Avg delay

115 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

3.9%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

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 07:25 (56 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 07:0084 flights23.1%
Departs 07:3067 flights18.4%
Departs 07:2556 flights15.4%

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 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 3 points better at 92.2%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

DL 901 next to PHX to ATL

Every carrier on PHX to ATL combined arrived on time 82.7% of the time across 3,764 flights, so DL 901 is 10 points ahead of it. Delta flew 2,303 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 87.0% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 11 points.

DL 901 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 901thin sample	364	92.2%	115 min	1.10%	A
All Delta Air Lines on PHX–ATL	2,303	87.0%	97 min	0.91%	A+
All carriers on PHX–ATL	3,764	82.7%	75 min	0.72%	B+
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 901 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter DL 901 held fairly steady: 94.6% in Jul–Sep 2025, 92.2% in Oct–Dec 2025, 89.8% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 92.2% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 5 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202592 flights94.6%
Oct–Dec 202592 flights92.2%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights89.8%
Apr–Jun 202690 flights92.2%

Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 901 did best on Monday at 100.0% on time and worst on Saturday at 86.5%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 14 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 901 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 79% of the 3,214 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
79%
National Airspace System
12%
Late-arriving aircraft
9%

The largest share of delay minutes, 79%, 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 2,545 of the 3,214 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,214 delay minutes reported on DL 901.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 1,587 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: 92.2% on time and 1.10% 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures