Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL1166
San Antonio (SAT) to New York (JFK) · scheduled 12:30 PM – 5:15 PM
How DL1166 performs
743 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL1166 arrived on time 79.7% of the time, against 74.3% for all SAT → JFK flights, so this departure is 5.4 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 2.4 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 743 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL1166 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL1166 is right now
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL1166 | 79.7% | 2.69% | -8 min | 9.2% | 743 |
| Delta Air Lines on SAT → JFK | 77.3% | 2.05% | -6 min | 9.0% | 1,124 |
| All SAT → JFK flights | 74.3% | 2.19% | -5 min | 10.9% | 1,600 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL1166 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL1166 on SAT → JFK. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies DL1166 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying DL1166 came in 15 or more minutes late on 12% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SAT just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 715 of 724 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late |
|---|---|
| DL1166 | 12% |
| Network, same turn | 18% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 45 to 59 minutes. How often DL1166’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves SAT late, does that still matter by the time it reaches JFK?
DL1166 pushes back an average of 22.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at JFK an average of 13.7 minutes late. The 8.4 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 15.2 minutes on the taxiways at SAT, 1.8 minutes longer than a typical SAT departure in the same hour.
On arrival at JFK, DL1166 spends 14.4 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 3.0 minutes longer than a typical JFK arrival (11.5 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached JFK. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 8,903 departures from SAT scheduled in the clock hour DL1166 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at JFK (351,546 flights), not just DL1166’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SAT
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL1166 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 8,903 departures from SAT are scheduled in the 12 PM–1 PM hour over the period, against 127,237 across the whole day.
DL1166 is scheduled out of SAT at 12:30 PM, in the 12 PM–1 PM bank. Departures from SAT in that hour arrive on time 81.6% of the time against 82.3% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour DL1166 leaves in is an ordinary one for SAT and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SAT to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes DL1166 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| JFK→SAT New York to San Antonio | June 7, 2024 – July 31, 2026 | 731 | 88.3% |
| AUS→JFK Austin to New York | September 16, 2023 – June 6, 2024 | 140 | 94.9% |
| LGA→ATL New York to Atlanta | April 9, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 28 | — |
| EWR→MSP Newark to Minneapolis | March 10, 2024 – April 8, 2024 | 30 | — |
| MSP→DEN Minneapolis to Denver | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 62 | — |
| LGA→DTW New York to Detroit | September 5–15, 2023 | 10 | — |
| LAX→PDX Los Angeles to Portland | July 2, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 55 | — |
| PDX→LAX Portland to Los Angeles | July 2, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 55 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL1166 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
51 min late
against a median of 8 min early
Percentiles over 743 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 743 records of DL1166 operating SAT → JFK, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
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