Flight number record
DL 960
Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to New York
- Route
- LAX → JFK
- Departs
- 21:45
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 960, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 960 lands a B−, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 960's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 58 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 354 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.01%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
5.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 960 flies
DL 960 flies LAX to JFK without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:45, used on 77 of 365 flights, with 21:35 (72 flights) and 21:00 (56 flights) next.
- Departs 21:4577 flights21.1%
- Departs 21:3572 flights19.7%
- Departs 21:0056 flights15.3%
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 21:45 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and DL 960 runs 13 points better at 83.1%. 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 960 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 960 is 6 points ahead of 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 beats by 2 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 960 | 365 | 83.1% | 72 min | 3.01% | 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 960 quarter by quarter
DL 960 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 91.1% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 68.4%, a swing of 23 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 flights76.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.1%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights84.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.6%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights68.4%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
By weekday, DL 960 did best on Monday at 92.3% on time and worst on Sunday at 70.8%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 22 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 960 runs when it is late
DL 960 often beats the schedule: 126 of 354 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 60 late arrivals split 29 under half an hour, 13 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 18 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early126 flights35.6%
- Within 15 min168 flights47.5%
- 15–29 min late29 flights8.2%
- 30–59 min late13 flights3.7%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights2.8%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 354 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 87 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 41 still arrived on time. 14 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 960
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 February 2026, 13 hours 56 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 February 2026 | 13 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 May 2026 | 10 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 January 2026 | 3 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 May 2026 | 3 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 21 December 2025 | 2 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why DL 960 runs late
Carrier accounts for 69% of the 4,297 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 69%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 69%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,971 of the 4,297 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,297 delay minutes reported on DL 960.
Cancellations run at 3.01%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.1% 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 a little over an hour, 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 365 flights under DL 960 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. 365 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 960
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 960: 3.01% of its 365 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs a little over an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
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%
- 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%
- American Airlines 238 on the same route67.0%
- 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
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.