Route reliability record
ATL→DAB
Atlanta to Daytona Beach
- Flights
- 1,478
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 366 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 55 minutes. That rests on 1,478 ATL to DAB flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to DAB: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.4% of the time and Saturday flights 89.9%, against 86.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 92 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,445 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.76%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
86.8% on time across 1,478 flights
These figures cover 1,478 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to DAB
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 | 1,478 | 86.8% | 54 min | 1.76% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to DAB
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to Daytona Beach
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → DABAtlanta to Daytona Beach | Delta Air Lines | 85.3% | 86.8% | 1.76% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 3035 08:55 |
| 2. ATL → MCOAtlanta to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 74.6% | 75.4% | 1.10% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ATL → MCOAtlanta to Orlando | Delta Air Lines | 69.9% | 70.7% | 1.17% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2204 07:15 |
| 4. ATL → MCOAtlanta to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 68.9% | 71.5% | 3.62% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | — |
| 5. ATL → MCOAtlanta to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 64.5% | 65.6% | 1.61% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 4556 08:14 |
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am364 flights92.4%
- 11am–2pm348 flights87.3%
- 2pm–5pm358 flights82.5%
- 5pm–8pm35 flights70.6%
- 8pm–5am373 flights86.5%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 92.4% of the time, against 70.6% for the evening 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 373 flights scheduled in it.
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 75.9% on time, 22 points below September, the best at 97.5%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 146 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 89.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.7%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 56% of the 10,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 56%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 5,774 of the 10,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 10,370 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.76% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.47%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.0% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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.
At 366 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 88.1% on time across 1,478 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 1,478 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 DAB 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 97.5% on time and July 75.9%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,445 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to DAB questions
How often is ATL to DAB delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.2% of the 1,478 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is ATL to DAB compared with the rest of the country?
86.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to DAB?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 92.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 70.6%, 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 DAB?
July is the weakest month at 75.9% on time, compared with 97.5% in September. 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
- DAB to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route73.4%
- CLT to DAB, a related route79.6%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.8%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. ATL to DAB and DAB 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.