Route reliability record
ATL→ABQ
Atlanta to Albuquerque
- Flights
- 1,002
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,269 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route 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 roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 1,002 ATL to ABQ flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to ABQ: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.2%, against 83.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 60 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 987 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.40%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.3% on time across 1,002 flights
These figures cover 1,002 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to ABQ
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 | 83.3% | 51 min | 1.40% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to ABQ
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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am270 flights91.8%
- 11am–2pm117 flights89.5%
- 2pm–5pm241 flights80.9%
- 5pm–8pm16 flights—
- 8pm–5am358 flights75.9%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.8% of the time, against 75.9% for the overnight window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 358 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to ABQ 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 ATL to ABQ, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 75.9%, a wide gap of 15.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am91.8%
- 11am–2pm89.5%
- 2–5pm80.9%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am75.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 72.7% on time, 19 points below April, the best at 91.8%. 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 80.5%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 54% of the 8,489 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,589 of the 8,489 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,489 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.40% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% 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 88.9% on time across 1,002 flights, 6 points above 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 ABQ 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 83.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 987 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to ABQ questions
How often is ATL to 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 16.7% of the 1,002 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is ATL to ABQ compared with the rest of the country?
83.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to ABQ?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 75.9%, 16 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 ATL to ABQ?
July is the weakest month at 72.7% on time, compared with 91.8% in April. Across the year that is 19 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 ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- PHX to ABQ, a related route77.9%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.3%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. ATL to ABQ and ABQ to ATL 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.