Flight number record
DL 960
Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to New York
- Route
- LAX → JFK
- Departs
- 21:45
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 960, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 960 earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, DL 960's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 68 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.64%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
5.0%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 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 21:30 (76 flights) and 21:35 (75 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 21:4577 flights21.1%
- Departs 21:3076 flights20.8%
- Departs 21:3575 flights20.5%
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 21:45 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 960 runs 14 points better at 84.4%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
Against the route
DL 960 next to LAX to JFK
Every carrier on LAX to JFK combined arrived on time 79.1% of the time across 10,287 flights, so DL 960 is 5 points ahead of it. Delta flew 3,358 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 81.6% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 3 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 960 | 365 | 84.4% | 76 min | 1.64% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on LAX–JFK | 3,358 | 81.6% | 93 min | 1.79% | B |
| All carriers on LAX–JFK | 10,287 | 79.1% | 92 min | 2.04% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | 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 2025 at 77.2%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 91 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 202592 flights77.2%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights91.1%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights84.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights84.6%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 960 ranged from 79.6% on Sunday to 90.2% on Monday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Delay causes
Why DL 960 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 70% of the 4,249 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.
- 70%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, 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 2,963 of the 4,249 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,249 delay minutes reported on DL 960.
Cancellations sit at 1.64% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
5.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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, read DL 960 as 84.4% on time with 1.64% cancelled over 365 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
- American Airlines 118 on the same route85.8%
- Delta Air Lines 934 on the same route89.4%
- Delta Air Lines 958 on the same route81.5%
- American Airlines 274 on the same route60.8%
- American Airlines 307 on the same route75.4%
- American Airlines 238 on the same route69.3%
- 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
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.