Carrier route record
DLAUS→SFO
Delta Air Lines · Austin to San Francisco
- Flights
- 500
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 18%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on AUS 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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 500 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,638 at 75.5% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Delta on AUS to SFO runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 81 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 494 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.4%
Every carrier on AUS to SFO, 2,788 flights
These figures cover 500 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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 AUS to SFO
Delta flew 500 of the 2,788 flights on AUS to SFO, about 18% of it. Its 69.2% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 84.6% to Southwest at 57.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 75.5% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 57.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 411 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 13 | 84.6% | 17 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 226 | 84.4% | 55 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 1,638 | 75.5% | 76 min | 0.37% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 500 | 69.2% | 63 min | 1.00% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 411 | 57.0% | 55 min | 0.49% | D+ |
The spread between United and Southwest is 19 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 19 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on AUS 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 30 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am141 flights84.3%
- 8am–11am85 flights61.4%
- 11am–2pm139 flights72.8%
- 2pm–5pm135 flights54.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.3% of the time, against 54.8% for the afternoon window. That is 30 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 141 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on AUS to SFO through the year
Delays peak in April, when the on-time rate falls to 52.1%. August is the strongest month at 89.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 37 points. May was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.9%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on AUS to SFO runs when it is late
The 152 late arrivals split 60 under half an hour, 39 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 53 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early70 flights14.2%
- Within 15 min272 flights55.1%
- 15–29 min late60 flights12.1%
- 30–59 min late39 flights7.9%
- 1–2 hours late31 flights6.3%
- 2+ hours late22 flights4.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 494 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 113 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 9 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 48 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 AUS to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 October 2025, 7 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 October 2025 | 7 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 July 2026 | 5 hours 38 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 25 February 2026 | 5 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 13 July 2026 | 4 hours | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 20 November 2025 | 2 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
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 9,522 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 29%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,522 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 to one. The split is drawn from 9,522 reported delay minutes.
32% 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 3,076 minutes out of 9,522, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.00% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
10.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 1,504 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 64.8% on time across 500 flights, 4 points below 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 500 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 Delta on AUS to SFO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 500 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 69.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 494 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to SFO, every carrier
- Delta on SFO to AUS, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on AUS to SFO84.4%
- United Airlines on AUS to SFO75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on AUS to SFO57.0%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.