Flight number record
DL 938
Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to New York
- Route
- LAX → JFK
- Departs
- 15:10
- Flights
- 302
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 938, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 938 lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 302 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 294 completed flights
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.66%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.5%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 302 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 938 flies
DL 938 flies LAX to JFK without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 15:10, used on 69 of 302 flights, with 15:40 (34 flights) and 15:35 (31 flights) next.
- Departs 15:1069 flights22.8%
- Departs 15:4034 flights11.3%
- Departs 15:3531 flights10.3%
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 15:10 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 938 runs 5 points better at 76.9%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
DL 938 next to LAX to JFK
Every carrier on LAX to JFK combined arrived on time 77.5% of the time across 10,289 flights, so DL 938 is about level with it. Delta flew 3,367 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 4 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 938thin sample | 302 | 76.9% | 94 min | 1.66% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on LAX–JFK | 3,367 | 79.4% | 87 min | 2.61% | B |
| All carriers on LAX–JFK | 10,289 | 77.5% | 90 min | 2.90% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 938 quarter by quarter
DL 938 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 85.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 62.7%, a swing of 23 points on roughly 76 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 202526 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202577 flights78.7%
- Jan–Mar 202663 flights68.3%
- Apr–Jun 202683 flights85.4%
- Jul–Sep 202653 flights62.7%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 938 did best on Wednesday at 85.4% on time and worst on Thursday at 66.0%. Each day rests on about 43 flights, so a gap of 19 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 938 runs when it is late
DL 938 often beats the schedule: 116 of 294 completed flights, 39%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 68 late arrivals split 21 under half an hour, 22 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 25 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early116 flights39.5%
- Within 15 min110 flights37.4%
- 15–29 min late21 flights7.1%
- 30–59 min late22 flights7.5%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights3.7%
- 2+ hours late14 flights4.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 294 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 71 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. 12 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 938
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 December 2025, 14 hours 16 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across December, February, October and March, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 December 2025 | 14 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 February 2026 | 6 hours 28 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 October 2025 | 5 hours 18 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 6 March 2026 | 5 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 October 2025 | 5 hours 5 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why DL 938 runs late
Carrier accounts for 58% of the 6,417 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 58%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,747 of the 6,417 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,417 delay minutes reported on DL 938.
Cancellations sit at 1.66% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.99%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.5% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,475 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 302 flights under DL 938 in the data flew LAX to JFK. 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. 302 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 938
For a booking, read DL 938 as 76.9% on time with 1.66% cancelled over 302 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to JFK, every carrier and departure
- JFK to LAX, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 934 on the same route86.7%
- Delta Air Lines 960 on the same route83.1%
- American Airlines 118 on the same route83.6%
- American Airlines 307 on the same route74.6%
- Delta Air Lines 958 on the same route82.4%
- American Airlines 274 on the same route57.9%
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) 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
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.