Flight number record
DL 959
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to West Palm Beach
- Route
- ATL → PBI
- Departs
- 16:52
- Flights
- 333
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 959, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 959 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 333 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Key figures
On time
73.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 328 completed flights
Avg delay
48 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.20%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
6.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 333 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Schedule
When DL 959 flies
DL 959 flies ATL to PBI without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:52, used on 96 of 333 flights, with 16:56 (36 flights) next.
- Departs 16:5296 flights28.8%
- Departs 16:5636 flights10.8%
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 16:52 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 71.9%, and DL 959 runs level with that at 73.5%. 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 959 next to ATL to PBI
Every carrier on ATL to PBI combined arrived on time 75.8% of the time across 3,475 flights, so DL 959 is 2 points behind it. Delta flew 3,402 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 76.4% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 959thin sample | 333 | 73.5% | 48 min | 1.20% | C |
| All Delta Air Lines on ATL–PBI | 3,402 | 76.4% | 52 min | 1.62% | B |
| All carriers on ATL–PBI | 3,475 | 75.8% | 54 min | 1.61% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 959 quarter by quarter
DL 959 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 61.3%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 67 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 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights75.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights65.2%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights80.9%
- Jul–Sep 202631 flights61.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 959 did best on Wednesday at 89.6% on time and worst on Sunday at 47.7%. Each day rests on about 48 flights, so a gap of 42 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 959 runs when it is late
The 87 late arrivals split 36 under half an hour, 29 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 22 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early38 flights11.6%
- Within 15 min203 flights61.9%
- 15–29 min late36 flights11.0%
- 30–59 min late29 flights8.8%
- 1–2 hours late17 flights5.2%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 328 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 68 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 6 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 25 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 PBI.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 959
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 July 2026, 4 hours 7 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.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 12 July 2026 | 4 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 March 2026 | 3 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 July 2026 | 2 hours 24 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 October 2025 | 2 hours 14 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 19 July 2026 | 2 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 959 runs late
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 4,207 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,571 of the 4,207 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,207 delay minutes reported on DL 959.
Cancellations sit at 1.20% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
6.7% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 545 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The same number turns up on one other city pair in the data, including PBI to ATL (183), but none flew often enough under DL 959 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to ATL to PBI only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 333 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 959
For a booking, read DL 959 as 73.5% on time with 1.20% cancelled over 333 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to PBI, every carrier and departure
- PBI to ATL, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 838 on the same route78.4%
- Delta Air Lines 1527 on the same route82.7%
- Delta Air Lines 1190 on the same route80.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1606 on the same route69.2%
- Delta Air Lines 1458 on the same route74.5%
- Delta Air Lines 1311 on the same route88.8%
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Palm Beach International (PBI) 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.