Flight number record

DL 990

Delta Air Lines · New York to Atlanta

Route: LGA → ATL
Departs: 12:00
Flights: 333
Period: September 2025 to August 2026

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 990, check with Delta Air Lines.

DL 990 lands a B−, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 333 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, DL 990's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 55 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 319 completed flights

Avg delay

70 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

4.20%

National rate is 1.89%

1 hour+ late

6.0%

National rate is 8.3%

These figures cover 333 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.

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Schedule

When DL 990 flies

DL 990 flies LGA to ATL without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 12:00, used on 179 of 333 flights, with 11:59 (138 flights) next.

Departs 12:00179 flights53.8%
Departs 11:59138 flights41.4%

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 12:00 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and DL 990 runs 5 points better at 82.8%. 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 990 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 990 is 7 points ahead of 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 beats by 2 points.

DL 990 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DL 990thin sample	333	82.8%	70 min	4.20%	B−
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 990 quarter by quarter

DL 990 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 72.5%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 67 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 202582 flights72.5%
Jan–Mar 202678 flights88.6%
Apr–Jun 202686 flights85.7%
Jul–Sep 202657 flights80.0%

Scale runs 65% to 100%.

By weekday, DL 990 ranged from 76.6% on Sunday to 88.0% on Wednesday. With about 48 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.

Arrival by arrival

How late DL 990 runs when it is late

DL 990 often beats the schedule: 118 of 319 completed flights, 37%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 55 late arrivals split 21 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 19 an hour or more.

15+ min early118 flights37.0%
Within 15 min146 flights45.8%
15–29 min late21 flights6.6%
30–59 min late15 flights4.7%
1–2 hours late12 flights3.8%
2+ hours late7 flights2.2%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 319 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 51 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 18 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 22 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 990

The latest arrival of the period was on 23 April 2026, 6 hours 37 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across April, October, December and July, with no single month standing out.

The latest arrivals of DL 990 in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
23 April 2026	6 hours 37 minutes	Carrier
30 October 2025	5 hours 22 minutes	National Airspace System
14 December 2025	5 hours 3 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
6 July 2026	4 hours 2 minutes	Carrier
18 April 2026	3 hours 42 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why DL 990 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 3,869 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
38%
National Airspace System
33%
Late-arriving aircraft
29%

The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,469 of the 3,869 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,869 delay minutes reported on DL 990.

Cancellations run at 4.20%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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

6.0% 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 a little over 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 333 flights under DL 990 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. 333 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 990

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 990: 4.20% of its 333 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs a little over an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures