Flight number record

DL 989

Delta Air Lines · New York to Atlanta

Route: LGA → ATL
Departs: 09:59
Flights: 326
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 989, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 989 earns an A. 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 about an hour. That rests on 326 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 989's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 74 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

85.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 319 completed flights

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.15%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

3.4%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 326 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 989 flies

DL 989 flies LGA to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 09:59, used on 201 of 326 flights, with 10:00 (125 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 09:59201 flights61.7%
Departs 10:00125 flights38.3%

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 09:59 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and DL 989 runs level with that at 85.0%. 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 989 next to LGA to ATL

Every carrier on LGA to ATL combined arrived on time 76.6% of the time across 8,343 flights, so DL 989 is 8 points ahead of it. Delta flew 4,933 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.9% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight beats by 3 points.

DL 989 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 989thin sample	326	85.0%	64 min	2.15%	A
All Delta Air Lines on LGA–ATL	4,933	79.9%	73 min	2.98%	B
All carriers on LGA–ATL	8,343	76.6%	78 min	3.67%	B−
Delta Air Lines, whole network	1,038,570	81.6%	71 min	1.62%	B

Across the year

DL 989 quarter by quarter

DL 989 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 95.3% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 72.2%, a swing of 23 points on roughly 82 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 202585 flights95.3%
Oct–Dec 202580 flights72.2%
Jan–Mar 202676 flights90.1%
Apr–Jun 202685 flights82.1%

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, DL 989 did best on Thursday at 93.9% on time and worst on Sunday at 78.3%. Each day rests on about 47 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why DL 989 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 52% of the 3,064 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.

National Airspace System
52%
Carrier
32%
Late-arriving aircraft
17%

52% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,589 minutes out of 3,064, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,064 delay minutes reported on DL 989.

Cancellations sit at 2.15% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.4% 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.

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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

Every one of the 326 flights under DL 989 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. 326 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 989

For a booking, read DL 989 as 85.0% on time with 2.15% cancelled over 326 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