Flight number record

DL 979

Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to New York

Route: LAX → JFK
Departs: 07:00
Flights: 363
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 979, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 979 earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 11 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 979's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 106 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

88.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 348 completed flights

Avg delay

86 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.93%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

4.0%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 363 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 13 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 979 flies

DL 979 flies LAX to JFK without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 07:00, used on 192 of 363 flights, with 07:45 (93 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 07:00192 flights52.9%
Departs 07:4593 flights25.6%

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 07:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and DL 979 runs level with that at 88.2%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

DL 979 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 979 is 9 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 7 points.

DL 979 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 979thin sample	363	88.2%	86 min	1.93%	A
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 979 quarter by quarter

DL 979 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 95.5% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 82.4%, a swing of 13 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 flights91.0%
Oct–Dec 202590 flights83.7%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights82.4%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights95.5%

Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 979 ranged from 83.0% on Tuesday to 93.9% on Friday. 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 979 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 77% of the 3,540 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.

Carrier
77%
National Airspace System
22%
Extreme weather
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 77%, 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 2,737 of the 3,540 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,540 delay minutes reported on DL 979.

Cancellations sit at 1.93% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 2.20%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.0% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

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 363 flights under DL 979 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. 363 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 979

For a booking, read DL 979 as 88.2% on time with 1.93% cancelled over 363 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures