Flight number record
DL 988
Delta Air Lines · New York to Atlanta
- Route
- LGA → ATL
- Departs
- 13:59
- Flights
- 341
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 988, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 988 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 341 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
73.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 335 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.47%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
8.1%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 341 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When DL 988 flies
DL 988 flies LGA to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 13:59, used on 219 of 341 flights, with 14:00 (107 flights) next.
- Departs 13:59219 flights64.2%
- Departs 14:00107 flights31.4%
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 13:59 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 988 runs 5 points worse at 73.4%. 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 988 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 988 is 2 points behind 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 8 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 988thin sample | 341 | 73.4% | 60 min | 1.47% | 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 988 quarter by quarter
DL 988 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 61.1%, a swing of 32 points on roughly 68 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 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights68.1%
- Jan–Mar 202677 flights71.6%
- Apr–Jun 202686 flights81.4%
- Jul–Sep 202657 flights61.1%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
By weekday, DL 988 did best on Tuesday at 82.4% on time and worst on Monday at 60.8%. Each day rests on about 49 flights, so a gap of 22 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 988 runs when it is late
DL 988 often beats the schedule: 116 of 335 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 89 late arrivals split 30 under half an hour, 32 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 27 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early116 flights34.6%
- Within 15 min130 flights38.8%
- 15–29 min late30 flights9.0%
- 30–59 min late32 flights9.6%
- 1–2 hours late17 flights5.1%
- 2+ hours late10 flights3.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 335 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
12 of 76 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 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 ATL.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 988
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 July 2026, 5 hours 1 minute 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 6 July 2026 | 5 hours 1 minute | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 July 2026 | 4 hours 12 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 6 September 2025 | 4 hours | Carrier |
| 16 March 2026 | 3 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 April 2026 | 3 hours 4 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 988 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 5,373 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,373 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 42 to one. The split is drawn from 5,373 delay minutes reported on DL 988.
Cancellations sit at 1.47% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.1% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 341 flights under DL 988 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. 341 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 988
For a booking, read DL 988 as 73.4% on time with 1.47% cancelled over 341 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
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 968 on the same route74.1%
- Delta Air Lines 993 on the same route82.6%
- Delta Air Lines 974 on the same route79.6%
- 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.