Route reliability record
ABQ→ATL
Albuquerque to Atlanta
- Flights
- 1,002
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 1,002 ABQ to ATL flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Best time to fly ABQ to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.9% of the time and Friday flights 90.7%, against 88.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 116 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 982 completed flights
Avg delay
105 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.60%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
88.9% on time across 1,002 flights
These figures cover 1,002 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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.
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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 | 1,002 | 88.9% | 105 min | 1.60% | 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.
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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 1,002 flights.
- 5am–8am365 flights91.9%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm268 flights88.3%
- 2pm–5pm339 flights85.4%
- 5pm–8pm21 flights—
- 8pm–5am9 flights—
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 91.9% on time for the 5am–8am window against 85.4% 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.
Explore
Filter ABQ to ATL 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 ABQ to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 85.4%, a real gap of 6.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.9%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm88.3%
- 2–5pm85.4%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 1,002 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
August is the worst month at 83.5% on time, 12 points below April, the best at 95.3%. 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 96 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 90.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 86.1%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 66% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 66%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 66%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,493 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,392 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.60% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.40%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.3% on time across 1,002 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,002 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. 1,002 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 88.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 982 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 nine arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.1% of the 1,002 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is ABQ to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
88.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 91.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 85.4%, 7 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 August delays on ABQ to ATL?
August is the weakest month at 83.5% on time, compared with 95.3% in April. Across the year that is 12 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
- Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ABQ to PHX, a related route81.8%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- ABQ to DEN, a related route82.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.9%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.