Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL791
New York (JFK) to Phoenix (PHX) · scheduled 8:05 AM – 10:56 AM
How DL791 performs
785 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL791 arrived on time 84.7% of the time, against 79.9% for all JFK → PHX flights, so this departure is 4.8 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 4.6 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 785 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL791 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL791 is right now
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL791 | 84.7% | 2.17% | -11 min | 3.0% | 785 |
| Delta Air Lines on JFK → PHX | 80.1% | 1.81% | -11 min | 6.6% | 2,810 |
| All JFK → PHX flights | 79.9% | 1.76% | -11 min | 7.2% | 8,588 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL791 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
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL791 on JFK → PHX. 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 DL791 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL791 pushed back an average of 3 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 1 minute late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into JFK just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 682 of 769 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL791 | 18% | 13% | 8% |
| Network, same turn | 23% | 40% | 9% |
The schedule leaves a long gap on the ground, which gives a late aircraft room to catch up before this flight pushes back.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 90 minutes to 3 hours. How often DL791’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL791 left 15 or more minutes late is lower than 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 JFK late, does that still matter by the time it reaches PHX?
DL791 pushes back an average of 2.8 minutes late and reaches the gate at PHX an average of 5.3 minutes early. The 8.1 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 29.8 minutes on the taxiways at JFK, 2.0 minutes longer than a typical JFK departure in the same hour.
On arrival at PHX, DL791 spends 8.0 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 about what any arrival at PHX spends on the ground before reaching the gate.
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 PHX. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 30,531 departures from JFK scheduled in the clock hour DL791 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at PHX (598,496 flights), not just DL791’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves JFK
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL791 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 30,531 departures from JFK are scheduled in the 8 AM–9 AM hour over the period, against 351,635 across the whole day.
DL791 is scheduled out of JFK at 8:05 AM, in the 8 AM–9 AM bank. Departures from JFK in that hour arrive on time 83.6% of the time against 77.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 6.6 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from JFK 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 DL791 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PHX→JFK Phoenix to New York | June 7, 2024 – July 31, 2026 | 506 | 76.3% |
| ATL→BOS Atlanta to Boston | May 7, 2024 – June 6, 2024 | 31 | — |
| MSP→STL Minneapolis to St. Louis | April 9, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 28 | — |
| SFO→DTW San Francisco to Detroit | March 10, 2024 – April 8, 2024 | 30 | — |
| EWR→SLC Newark to Salt Lake City | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 62 | — |
| SLC→EWR Salt Lake City to Newark | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 62 | — |
| ATL→LGA Atlanta to New York | July 2, 2023 – January 7, 2024 | 180 | 87.6% |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL791 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.
25 min late
against a median of 11 min early
Percentiles over 785 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA1487 | American Airlines | 89.4% | 14 min early | 913 |
| DL791 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 84.7% | 11 min early | 785 |
| AA2829 | American Airlines | 84.0% | 15 min early | 1,121 |
| DL798 | Delta Air Lines | 75.5% | 7 min early | 782 |
| B6135 | JetBlue | 60.8% | 6 min late | 669 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL791 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 785 records of DL791 operating JFK → PHX, 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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