Route reliability record
ATL→AUS
Atlanta to Austin
- Flights
- 4,497
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 813 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 4,497 ATL to AUS flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,038 at 82.4% on time.
Best time to fly ATL to AUS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.8%, against 81.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,434 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.27%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
82.4% on time across 1,038 flights
These figures cover 4,497 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 AUS
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,038 | 82.4% | 52 min | 0.58% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,163 | 81.9% | 58 min | 1.49% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 295 | 66.7% | 77 min | 1.36% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 35 min | 0.00% | F+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 82.4%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to AUS
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to Austin
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → AUSAtlanta to Austin | Southwest Airlines | 81.9% | 82.4% | 0.58% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. ATL → AUSAtlanta to Austin | Delta Air Lines | 80.7% | 81.9% | 1.49% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 2976 08:05 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am160 flights96.2%
- 8am–11am925 flights90.1%
- 11am–2pm971 flights85.3%
- 2pm–5pm1,063 flights76.1%
- 5pm–8pm752 flights74.0%
- 8pm–5am626 flights73.8%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.2% of the time, against 73.8% for the overnight window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,063 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to AUS 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 AUS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 73.8%, a wide gap of 22.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.2%
- 8–11am90.1%
- 11am–2pm85.3%
- 2–5pm76.1%
- 5–8pm74.0%
- 8pm–5am73.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 70.5% on time, 22 points below February, the best at 92.7%. 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 407 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.0%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route 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 50,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 50,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 49,532 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 19,000 of the 50,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.27% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.9% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 813 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 runs 81.9% on time across 4,484 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,497 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in AUS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 92.7% on time and July 70.5%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,434 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to AUS questions
How often is ATL to AUS delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.0% of the 4,497 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to AUS?
Southwest Airlines leads at 82.4% on time across 1,038 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 81.9%, a gap of half a point. 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 ATL to AUS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.8%, 22 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 AUS?
July is the weakest month at 70.5% on time, compared with 92.7% in February. Across the year that is 22 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
- AUS to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to AUS82.4%
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to AUS81.9%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to AUS66.7%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- DEN to AUS, a related route76.2%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record82.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record66.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ATL to AUS and AUS 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.