Albuquerque, NM · departure reliability
ABQ
Albuquerque International Sunport
- Departures
- 24,547
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Carriers
- 7
- US rank
- #59 by volume
Albuquerque
Albuquerque International Sunport lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 24,547 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,183 at 89.3% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the seven carriers covered here at 89.3% on time across 1,183 flights.
Key figures
On time
83.1%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.86%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
89.3% on time here
These figures cover 25,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of ABQ
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 89.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 79.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,554 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 11,741 | 81.1% | 54 min | 0.61% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 5,080 | 87.9% | 80 min | 0.37% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 2,554 | 79.1% | 113 min | 2.08% | B |
| United Airlines | 2,139 | 83.4% | 88 min | 0.89% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,183 | 89.3% | 108 min | 1.35% | A |
| Envoy Air | 1,038 | 84.5% | 63 min | 1.16% | B |
| Alaska Airlines | 547 | 86.0% | 44 min | 0.73% | A+ |
Delta leads American by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Route by route
Busiest routes out of ABQ
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 17 busiest departures from ABQ, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 83.1%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ABQ to PHX · Phoenix | 3,302 | 81.8% | 66 min | 0.51% | B+ |
| ABQ to DEN · Denver | 3,216 | 82.3% | 69 min | 0.59% | B+ |
| ABQ to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 2,269 | 81.0% | 106 min | 2.42% | B |
| ABQ to LAX · Los Angeles | 2,242 | 88.1% | 87 min | 0.49% | A+ |
| ABQ to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,715 | 81.3% | 56 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| ABQ to DAL · Dallas | 1,625 | 82.4% | 54 min | 1.48% | B |
| ABQ to SLC · Salt Lake City | 1,149 | 93.0% | 66 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| ABQ to ORD · Chicago | 1,141 | 76.6% | 88 min | 1.31% | B |
| ABQ to ATL · Atlanta | 1,002 | 88.9% | 105 min | 1.60% | A |
| ABQ to HOU · Houston | 970 | 83.1% | 47 min | 0.21% | B+ |
| ABQ to AUS · Austin | 842 | 78.4% | 58 min | 0.36% | B+ |
| ABQ to SFO · San Francisco | 710 | 73.9% | 68 min | 0.14% | C+ |
| ABQ to SAN · San Diego | 681 | 78.6% | 58 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| ABQ to SEA · Seattle | 556 | 86.1% | 44 min | 0.72% | A+ |
| ABQ to IAH · Houston | 474 | 91.9% | 100 min | 0.84% | A+ |
| ABQ to MDW · Chicago | 423 | 89.3% | 44 min | 0.95% | A+ |
| ABQ to BWI · Baltimore | 399 | 85.5% | 47 min | 1.00% | A |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave ABQ
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am6,339 flights93.4%
- 8am–11am3,983 flights88.6%
- 11am–2pm5,450 flights83.9%
- 2pm–5pm4,446 flights74.4%
- 5pm–8pm3,463 flights73.0%
- 8pm–5am866 flights63.1%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.1% on time, against 93.4% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 6,339 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ABQ departures by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On departures from Albuquerque (ABQ), the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 63.1%, a wide gap of 30.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.4%
- 8–11am88.6%
- 11am–2pm83.9%
- 2–5pm74.4%
- 5–8pm73.0%
- 8pm–5am63.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When ABQ runs late
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 24,547 flights. The strip shows how much of ABQ's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
July is the worst month at 78.0% on time, 9 points below February, the best at 87.3%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 2,383 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.6%, a spread of 5 points.
ABQ month by month
Delay causes
Why ABQ gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 293,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 293,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 293,154 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.86%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
5.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
24,547 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
What to do with this
Flying out of ABQ
Put together: avoid the 8pm–5am departure. It runs 63.1% on time against 93.4% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 30 points is the largest single thing you control here. Delta Air Lines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 24,278 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ABQ delay questions
How often is Albuquerque (ABQ) delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.9% of the 24,547 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Albuquerque (ABQ)?
Delta Air Lines leads at 89.3% on time across 1,183 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 79.1%, a gap of 10 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Albuquerque (ABQ)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.1%, 30 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on Albuquerque (ABQ)?
July is the weakest month at 78.0% on time, compared with 87.3% in February. Across the year that is 9 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- ABQ to PHX — Phoenix81.8%
- ABQ to DEN — Denver82.3%
- ABQ to DFW — Dallas-Fort Worth81.0%
- ABQ to LAX — Los Angeles88.1%
- ABQ to LAS — Las Vegas81.3%
- ABQ to DAL — Dallas82.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.9%
- American Airlines on-time record79.1%
- United Airlines on-time record83.4%
- Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix and Las Vegas: the Mountain West hubs
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.