Flight profile · Delta Air Lines
DL968
New York (LGA) to Atlanta (ATL) · scheduled 5:00 PM – 7:35 PM
How DL968 performs
725 operations, June 2024 – July 2026.
DL968 arrived on time 72.8% of the time, against 78.4% for all LGA → ATL flights, so this departure is 5.6 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Delta Air Lines’ own flights on this route it is 8.8 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 725 operations, June 2024 – July 2026 · If DL968 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where DL968 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL968 | 72.8% | 2.21% | -7 min | 12.0% | 725 |
| Delta Air Lines on LGA → ATL | 81.6% | 1.89% | -11 min | 7.2% | 14,633 |
| All LGA → ATL flights | 78.4% | 2.54% | -9 min | 8.8% | 24,614 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
Why DL968 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DL968 on LGA → 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 DL968 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, DL968 pushed back an average of 61 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 LGA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 695 of 710 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL968 | 22% | 82% | 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 DL968’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often DL968 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 June 2024 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves LGA late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ATL?
DL968 pushes back an average of 22.4 minutes late and reaches the gate at ATL an average of 9.9 minutes late. The 12.4 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 28.1 minutes on the taxiways at LGA, 1.3 minutes longer than a typical LGA departure in the same hour.
On arrival at ATL, DL968 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 about what any arrival at ATL 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 ATL. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 29,634 departures from LGA scheduled in the clock hour DL968 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 DL968’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · June 2024 – July 2026
The hour it leaves LGA
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. DL968 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 29,634 departures from LGA are scheduled in the 5 PM–6 PM hour over the period, against 456,467 across the whole day.
DL968 is scheduled out of LGA at 5:00 PM, in the 5 PM–6 PM bank. Departures from LGA in that hour arrive on time 70.2% of the time against 78.3% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.1 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from LGA 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 DL968 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| BOS→DCA Boston to Washington | September 9, 2024 – October 6, 2024 | 24 | — |
| SAT→LAX San Antonio to Los Angeles | May 7, 2024 – June 6, 2024 | 26 | — |
| SLC→OAK Salt Lake City to Oakland | May 11, 2024 – June 1, 2024 | 5 | — |
| SEA→ATL Seattle to Atlanta | April 11, 2024 – May 6, 2024 | 16 | — |
| TPA→BOS Tampa to Boston | March 10, 2024 – April 8, 2024 | 30 | — |
| ATL→HSV Atlanta to Huntsville | February 1, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 38 | — |
| HSV→ATL Huntsville to Atlanta | February 1, 2024 – March 9, 2024 | 38 | — |
| LAS→MCO Las Vegas to Orlando | January 12, 2024 | 1 | — |
| ATL→RSW Atlanta to Fort Myers | December 16, 2023 – January 7, 2024 | 23 | — |
| RSW→ATL Fort Myers to Atlanta | December 16, 2023 – January 7, 2024 | 23 | — |
| BOS→DFW Boston to Dallas–Fort Worth | July 2, 2023 – December 15, 2023 | 146 | 74.0% |
| DFW→BOS Dallas–Fort Worth to Boston | July 1, 2023 – December 15, 2023 | 19 | — |
| LGA→ORD New York to Chicago | November 26, 2023 | 1 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route DL968 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.
77 min late
against a median of 7 min early
DL968 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 7 min early, but the worst tenth are 84 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 725 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL342 | Delta Air Lines | 91.8% | 12 min early | 826 |
| DL550 | Delta Air Lines | 91.3% | 9 min early | 815 |
| DL364 | Delta Air Lines | 90.5% | 11 min early | 617 |
| DL992 | Delta Air Lines | 86.3% | 10 min early | 772 |
| DL993 | Delta Air Lines | 85.7% | 11 min early | 762 |
| DL989 | Delta Air Lines | 85.3% | 15 min early | 658 |
| DL990 | Delta Air Lines | 83.8% | 9 min early | 707 |
| DL994 | Delta Air Lines | 80.7% | 9 min early | 704 |
| DL968 this flight | Delta Air Lines | 72.8% | 7 min early | 725 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. DL968 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 725 records of DL968 operating LGA → 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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