Route reliability record
ATL→CHS
Atlanta to Charleston
- Flights
- 3,235
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 259 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 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 3,235 ATL to CHS flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to CHS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.9%, against 82.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 50 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,174 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.67%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
82.3% on time across 3,232 flights
These figures cover 3,235 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 CHS
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 | 3,232 | 82.3% | 56 min | 1.67% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 66.7% | 22 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to CHS
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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am71 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am676 flights91.9%
- 11am–2pm394 flights86.7%
- 2pm–5pm703 flights79.5%
- 5pm–8pm617 flights77.7%
- 8pm–5am774 flights76.8%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.2% of the time, against 76.8% for the overnight window. That is 17 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 774 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to CHS 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 CHS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 76.8%, a wide gap of 17.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.2%
- 8–11am91.9%
- 11am–2pm86.7%
- 2–5pm79.5%
- 5–8pm77.7%
- 8pm–5am76.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 64.9% on time, 28 points below September, the best at 93.3%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 295 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.3%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 49% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 15,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 31,268 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.67% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.5% 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 259 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 88.9% on time across 3,234 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,235 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 CHS 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 93.3% on time and July 64.9%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,174 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to CHS questions
How often is ATL to CHS 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 17.7% of the 3,235 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to CHS compared with the rest of the country?
82.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 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 CHS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 76.8%, 17 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 CHS?
July is the weakest month at 64.9% on time, compared with 93.3% in September. Across the year that is 28 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
- CHS to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Charleston International (CHS) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- CLT to CHS, a related route75.6%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record66.7%
- 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 CHS and CHS 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.