Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL960
Los Angeles (LAX) to New York (JFK) · scheduled 9:45 PM – 6:00 AM
How DL960 performs
850 operations, January 2024 – July 2026.
DL960 arrived on time 82.4% of the time, against 79.8% for all LAX → JFK flights, so this departure is 2.6 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 2.8 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 850 operations, January 2024 – July 2026 · If DL960 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL960 is right now
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL960 | 82.4% | 1.18% | -9 min | 4.6% | 850 |
| Delta Air Lines on LAX → JFK | 79.6% | 1.03% | -9 min | 7.5% | 10,288 |
| All LAX → JFK flights | 79.8% | 1.27% | -10 min | 8.3% | 31,153 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · January 2024 – July 2026
Why DL960 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
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL960 on LAX → JFK. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering January 2024 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies DL960 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL960 pushed back an average of 40 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 5 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, 797 of 840 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL960 | 18% | 58% | 12% |
| 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 DL960’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL960 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 January 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves LAX late, does that still matter by the time it reaches JFK?
DL960 pushes back an average of 13.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at JFK an average of 0.8 minutes late. The 12.3 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. It spends 19.5 minutes on the taxiways at LAX, 1.8 minutes longer than a typical LAX departure in the same hour.
On arrival at JFK, DL960 spends 8.8 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 2.6 minutes shorter 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 25,920 departures from LAX scheduled in the clock hour DL960 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 DL960’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · January 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves LAX
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL960 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.
DL960 is scheduled out of LAX at 9:45 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 DL960 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 · January 2024 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes DL960 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→SAN New York to San Diego | July 1, 2023 – June 6, 2024 | 190 | 87.4% |
| DTW→SAN Detroit to San Diego | April 15, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 22 | — |
| SAN→DTW San Diego to Detroit | April 15, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 13 | — |
| ATL→TUL Atlanta to Tulsa | December 7–15, 2023 | 9 | — |
| TUL→ATL Tulsa to Atlanta | December 7–15, 2023 | 9 | — |
| SAN→JFK San Diego to New York | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 66 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL960 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.
29 min late
against a median of 9 min early
Percentiles over 850 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering January 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA118 | American Airlines | 89.6% | 17 min early | 1,122 |
| AA10 | American Airlines | 89.5% | 18 min early | 1,095 |
| B62824 | JetBlue | 88.7% | 14 min early | 658 |
| DL934 | Delta Air Lines | 88.2% | 10 min early | 876 |
| DL979 | Delta Air Lines | 87.2% | 13 min early | 783 |
| DL915 | Delta Air Lines | 84.7% | 11 min early | 727 |
| AA2 | American Airlines | 84.2% | 15 min early | 1,121 |
| DL960 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 82.4% | 9 min early | 850 |
| B6224 | JetBlue | 82.1% | 13 min early | 810 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL960 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 850 records of DL960 operating LAX → 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
Analysis last recomputed