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Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.0% of the time, against 75.2% for the evening window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 2,017 flights scheduled in it.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 91.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 78.1%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delta leads United by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 36,000 of the 80,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 80,412 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.10%, below the national 0.51% 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.

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.3% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 5.4% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.