Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL654
San Jose (SJC) to Atlanta (ATL) · scheduled 6:35 AM – 2:18 PM
How DL654 performs
781 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 781 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL654 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How DL654 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight stays close to typical even on its worst days, a smaller gap than 94% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
A typical arrival is 14 min early, and the worst tenth are only 20 minutes worse than that.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.
Where DL654 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL654 | 93.5% | 1.15% | -14 min | 2.0% | 781 |
| Delta Air Lines on SJC → ATL | 92.6% | 0.99% | -15 min | 2.1% | 2,632 |
| All SJC → ATL flights | 92.6% | 0.99% | -15 min | 2.1% | 2,632 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL654 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 DL654 on SJC → ATL. 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 DL654 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
DL654 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 7.8 hours on the ground at SJC, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL654 pushed back an average of 15 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 0 minutes early.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SJC just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 769 of 772 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL654 | 19% | 11% | 5% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often DL654’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL654 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 June 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves SJC late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ATL?
DL654 pushes back an average of 2.6 minutes late and reaches the gate at ATL an average of 7.7 minutes early. The 10.3 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 16.6 minutes on the taxiways at SJC is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at ATL, DL654 spends 7.3 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 2.3 minutes shorter than a typical ATL arrival (9.6 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 ATL. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 16,708 departures from SJC scheduled in the clock hour DL654 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at ATL (1,012,161 flights), not just DL654’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SJC
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL654 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 16,708 departures from SJC are scheduled in the 6 AM–7 AM hour over the period, against 147,137 across the whole day.
DL654 is scheduled out of SJC at 6:35 AM, in the 6 AM–7 AM bank. Departures from SJC in that hour arrive on time 94.0% of the time against 84.1% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 9.9 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SJC 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 DL654 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ATL→SJC Atlanta to San Jose | February 12, 2026 – April 12, 2026 | 60 | — |
| ATL→DCA Atlanta to Washington | December 16, 2023 – June 6, 2024 | 168 | 77.2% |
| DCA→ATL Washington to Atlanta | December 16, 2023 – June 6, 2024 | 103 | 82.5% |
| FLL→SEA Fort Lauderdale to Seattle | September 5, 2023 – December 15, 2023 | 89 | — |
| SEA→FLL Seattle to Fort Lauderdale | September 5, 2023 – December 15, 2023 | 89 | — |
| ATL→PDX Atlanta to Portland | July 5, 2023 – September 1, 2023 | 29 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL654 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.
6 min late
against a median of 14 min early
Percentiles over 781 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering June 2024 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL654 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 93.5% | 14 min early | 781 |
| DL809 | Delta Air Lines | 91.5% | 16 min early | 1,011 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL654 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 781 records of DL654 operating SJC → ATL, 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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