Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL2986
Los Angeles (LAX) to San Francisco (SFO) · scheduled 9:49 PM – 11:49 PM
How DL2986 performs
817 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 817 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If DL2986 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL2986 is right now
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL2986 | 69.7% | 0.73% | -3 min | 8.6% | 817 |
| Delta Air Lines on LAX → SFO | 71.4% | 0.80% | -4 min | 9.1% | 7,252 |
| All LAX → SFO flights | 69.3% | 0.67% | -1 min | 9.8% | 34,819 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why DL2986 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL2986 on LAX → SFO. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies DL2986 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL2986 pushed back an average of 41 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 3 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into LAX just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 787 of 811 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 | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL2986 | 21% | 66% | 15% |
| Network, same turn | 17% | 68% | 9% |
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 60 to 89 minutes. How often DL2986’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL2986 left 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s.
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 July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves LAX late, does that still matter by the time it reaches SFO?
DL2986 pushes back an average of 12.9 minutes late and reaches the gate at SFO an average of 8.3 minutes late. The 4.6 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. Its 17.7 minutes on the taxiways at LAX is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at SFO, DL2986 spends 9.0 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 1.1 minutes longer than a typical SFO arrival (7.9 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 SFO. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 25,920 departures from LAX scheduled in the clock hour DL2986 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at SFO (436,060 flights), not just DL2986’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves LAX
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL2986 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 25,920 departures from LAX are scheduled in the 9 PM–10 PM hour over the period, against 595,153 across the whole day.
DL2986 is scheduled out of LAX at 9:49 PM, in the 9 PM–10 PM bank. Departures from LAX in that hour arrive on time 79.1% of the time against 81.4% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour DL2986 leaves in is an ordinary one for LAX and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from LAX 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 · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes DL2986 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| LAX→MEM Los Angeles to Memphis | April 10, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 20 | — |
| ATL→BTV Atlanta to Burlington | July 1–8, 2023 | 2 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL2986 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 3 min early
Percentiles over 817 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL1421 | Delta Air Lines | 91.9% | 13 min early | 825 |
| DL2054 | Delta Air Lines | 73.0% | 6 min early | 680 |
| UA2019 | United Airlines | 72.5% | 4 min early | 837 |
| DL1559 | Delta Air Lines | 72.0% | 5 min early | 744 |
| DL2272 | Delta Air Lines | 71.4% | 5 min early | 976 |
| DL2986 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 69.7% | 3 min early | 817 |
| DL2267 | Delta Air Lines | 68.7% | 5 min early | 982 |
| DL1715 | Delta Air Lines | 59.8% | 6 min late | 636 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL2986 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 817 records of DL2986 operating LAX → SFO, 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
Analysis last recomputed