Route reliability record
ATL→CAE
Atlanta to Columbia
- Flights
- 1,871
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 192 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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 about an hour on average. That rests on 1,871 ATL to CAE flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to CAE: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.6%, against 83.1% 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 58 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,844 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.39%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.0% on time across 1,867 flights
These figures cover 1,871 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 CAE
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,867 | 83.0% | 64 min | 1.39% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to CAE
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–11am337 flights91.9%
- 11am–2pm298 flights89.5%
- 2pm–5pm420 flights79.3%
- 5pm–8pm377 flights76.1%
- 8pm–5am439 flights81.5%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.9% of the time, against 76.1% for the evening 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 439 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to CAE 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 CAE, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 76.1%, a wide gap of 15.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am91.9%
- 11am–2pm89.5%
- 2–5pm79.3%
- 5–8pm76.1%
- 8pm–5am81.5%
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 17 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 72.2% on time, 17 points below September, the best at 88.9%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 219 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 80.3%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 50% of the 20,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,982 of the 20,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 20,048 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.39% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.0% 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.
At 192 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 86.0% on time across 1,871 flights, within 3 points 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 1,871 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 CAE 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. September runs 88.9% on time and July 72.2%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,844 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to CAE questions
How often is ATL to CAE 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 16.9% of the 1,871 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to CAE compared with the rest of the country?
83.1% 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 CAE?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.1%, 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 CAE?
July is the weakest month at 72.2% on time, compared with 88.9% in September. Across the year that is 17 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
- CAE to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- DCA to CAE, a related route66.7%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.0%
- 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 CAE and CAE 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.