Carrier route record
DLATL→SFO
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to San Francisco
- Flights
- 2,393
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 72%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on ATL to SFO sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,393 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Delta on ATL to SFO runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 88 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,371 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.67%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
69.9%
Every carrier on ATL to SFO, 3,339 flights
These figures cover 2,393 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on ATL to SFO
Delta flew 2,393 of the 3,339 flights on ATL to SFO, most of the route. Its 68.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 69.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 76.9% to Frontier at 65.6%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 636 | 76.9% | 69 min | 0.47% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 2,393 | 68.5% | 55 min | 0.67% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 310 | 65.6% | 63 min | 1.29% | C |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on ATL to SFO
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Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am2 flights—
- 8am–11am729 flights75.3%
- 11am–2pm210 flights69.4%
- 2pm–5pm344 flights67.3%
- 5pm–8pm577 flights62.6%
- 8pm–5am531 flights66.0%
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.6% on time, against 75.3% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 729 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on ATL to SFO through the year
July is the worst month at 54.0% on time, 31 points below March, the best at 85.1%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 230 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.0%, a spread of 19 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on ATL to SFO runs when it is late
The 746 late arrivals split 296 under half an hour, 245 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 205 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early386 flights16.3%
- Within 15 min1,239 flights52.3%
- 15–29 min late296 flights12.5%
- 30–59 min late245 flights10.3%
- 1–2 hours late143 flights6.0%
- 2+ hours late62 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 2,371 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
68 of 548 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 12% of them. In the other direction, 266 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 SFO.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on ATL to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 April 2026, 14 hours 11 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 April 2026 | 14 hours 11 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 October 2025 | 12 hours 44 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 August 2026 | 8 hours 31 minutes | Carrier |
| 31 December 2025 | 6 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 December 2025 | 5 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 41,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 40%Carrier
- 10%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 41,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 40,829 reported delay minutes.
46% 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 19,000 minutes out of 41,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.67%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.6% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,139 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.1% on time across 2,390 flights, 13 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 13 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,393 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on ATL to SFO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 85.1% on time and July 54.0%, a swing of 31 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,371 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to SFO, every carrier
- Delta on SFO to ATL, the return leg
- United Airlines on ATL to SFO76.9%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to SFO65.6%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.