Route reliability record
ABQ→ATL
Albuquerque to Atlanta
- Flights
- 996
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,269 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 12 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 996 ABQ to ATL flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Best time to fly ABQ to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 93.5%, against 89.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 122 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 977 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.71%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
89.8% on time across 996 flights
These figures cover 996 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 airline is most reliable on ABQ to ATL
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 996 | 89.8% | 97 min | 1.71% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on ABQ to ATL
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 996 flights.
- 5am–8am365 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm262 flights89.6%
- 2pm–5pm339 flights86.6%
- 5pm–8pm21 flights—
- 8pm–5am9 flights—
Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 92.2% on time for the 5am–8am window against 86.6% for 2pm–5pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 996 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
April is the best month on the calendar at 95.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 96 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 93.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 84.6%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 67% of the 9,728 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 67%Carrier
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, 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 6,527 of the 9,728 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,728 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.71% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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.
The 1,269 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.3% on time across 996 flights, 5 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 996 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ATL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 996 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 89.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 977 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ABQ to ATL questions
How often is ABQ to ATL delayed?
About one flight in ten arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 10.2% of the 996 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is ABQ to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
89.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 12 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ABQ to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 86.6%, 6 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 March delays on ABQ to ATL?
March is the weakest month at 84.3% on time, compared with 95.3% in April. Across the year that is 11 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
- ATL to ABQ — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ABQ to PHX, a related route82.4%
- LGA to ATL, a related route76.6%
- ABQ to DEN, a related route82.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.8%
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
Direction matters. ABQ to ATL and ATL to ABQ are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.