Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL899
Los Angeles (LAX) to Atlanta (ATL) · scheduled 10:45 PM – 6:00 AM
How DL899 performs
893 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
DL899 arrived on time 77.0% of the time, against 78.7% for all LAX → ATL flights, so this departure is 1.7 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 4.1 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 893 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If DL899 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL899 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL899 | 77.0% | 1.01% | -4 min | 6.8% | 893 |
| Delta Air Lines on LAX → ATL | 81.1% | 0.69% | -5 min | 5.6% | 12,180 |
| All LAX → ATL flights | 78.7% | 0.84% | -5 min | 6.7% | 16,272 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why DL899 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
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL899 on LAX → ATL. 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 DL899 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL899 pushed back an average of 31 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 8 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, 839 of 885 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL899 | 26% | 61% | 17% |
| 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 DL899’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL899 left 15 or more minutes late is higher 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 July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves LAX late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ATL?
DL899 pushes back an average of 15.2 minutes late and reaches the gate at ATL an average of 6.6 minutes late. The 8.6 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. It spends 17.0 minutes on the taxiways at LAX, 1.1 minutes shorter than a typical LAX departure in the same hour.
On arrival at ATL, DL899 spends 7.1 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 2.5 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 26,417 departures from LAX scheduled in the clock hour DL899 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 DL899’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. DL899 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 26,417 departures from LAX are scheduled in the 10 PM–11 PM hour over the period, against 595,153 across the whole day.
DL899 is scheduled out of LAX at 10:45 PM, in the 10 PM–11 PM bank. Departures from LAX in that hour arrive on time 80.2% of the time against 81.4% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour DL899 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.
By day of week
Does DL899 run worse on particular days?
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 8.1 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes DL899 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→SEA Phoenix to Seattle | November 11, 2024 – December 18, 2024 | 37 | — |
| SLC→BOS Salt Lake City to Boston | April 9, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 28 | — |
| JFK→SAN New York to San Diego | January 8, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 62 | — |
| OKC→ATL Oklahoma City to Atlanta | November 6, 2023 – December 2, 2023 | 21 | — |
| ATL→TPA Atlanta to Tampa | November 23, 2023 | 1 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL899 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.
40 min late
against a median of 4 min early
Percentiles over 893 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL390 | Delta Air Lines | 90.5% | 8 min early | 947 |
| DL471 | Delta Air Lines | 84.5% | 10 min early | 700 |
| DL782 | Delta Air Lines | 81.3% | 4 min early | 687 |
| DL327 | Delta Air Lines | 81.3% | 7 min early | 662 |
| DL515 | Delta Air Lines | 80.4% | 4 min early | 1,022 |
| DL528 | Delta Air Lines | 80.3% | 5 min early | 721 |
| DL783 | Delta Air Lines | 80.2% | 5 min early | 653 |
| DL715 | Delta Air Lines | 80.2% | 5 min early | 911 |
| DL899 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 77.0% | 4 min early | 893 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL899 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 893 records of DL899 operating LAX → 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
Analysis last recomputed