Flight number record
DL 968
Delta Air Lines · New York to Atlanta
- Route
- LGA → ATL
- Departs
- 17:00
- Flights
- 353
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 968, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 968 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 353 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
74.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 343 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.55%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
12.8%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 353 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 968 flies
DL 968 is scheduled to leave New York (LGA) at 17:00 local time and reach Atlanta (ATL) at 19:53. That slot held for 323 of the 353 scheduled departures in the data, so the figures below describe one steady operation rather than a number that moved around the clock.
- Departs 17:00323 flights91.5%
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 17:00 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.0%, and DL 968 runs 6 points better at 74.1%. 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 968 next to LGA to ATL
Every carrier on LGA to ATL combined arrived on time 75.5% of the time across 8,500 flights, so DL 968 is about level with it. Delta flew 4,935 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.1% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 7 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 968thin sample | 353 | 74.1% | 86 min | 2.55% | C |
| All Delta Air Lines on LGA–ATL | 4,935 | 79.1% | 73 min | 3.55% | B− |
| All carriers on LGA–ATL | 8,500 | 75.5% | 79 min | 4.36% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 968 quarter by quarter
DL 968 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 64.8%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 71 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 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights73.3%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights81.6%
- Apr–Jun 202683 flights68.3%
- Jul–Sep 202658 flights64.8%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 968 did best on Saturday at 84.2% on time and worst on Thursday at 64.7%. Each day rests on about 50 flights, so a gap of 20 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 968 runs when it is late
DL 968 often beats the schedule: 152 of 343 completed flights, 44%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 89 late arrivals split 24 under half an hour, 21 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 44 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early152 flights44.3%
- Within 15 min102 flights29.7%
- 15–29 min late24 flights7.0%
- 30–59 min late21 flights6.1%
- 1–2 hours late24 flights7.0%
- 2+ hours late20 flights5.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 343 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 111 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 35 still arrived on time. 13 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 968
The latest arrival of the period was on 27 August 2026, 6 hours 17 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 27 August 2026 | 6 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 January 2026 | 5 hours 31 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 October 2025 | 5 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 September 2025 | 5 hours | National Airspace System |
| 10 May 2026 | 4 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 968 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 7,674 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 7,674 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 44 to one. The split is drawn from 7,674 delay minutes reported on DL 968.
Cancellations run at 2.55%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
12.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 762 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.
Every one of the 353 flights under DL 968 in the data flew LGA 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. 353 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 968
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 968: 2.55% of its 353 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs an hour and a half, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to ATL, every carrier and departure
- ATL to LGA, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 550 on the same route89.4%
- Frontier Airlines 3287 on the same route60.8%
- Delta Air Lines 992 on the same route86.0%
- Delta Air Lines 993 on the same route82.6%
- Delta Air Lines 974 on the same route79.6%
- Delta Air Lines 342 on the same route93.1%
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.