Route reliability record
ATL→DAL
Atlanta to Dallas
- Flights
- 3,398
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 721 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,398 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,850 at 84.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
81.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,307 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
84.4% on time across 1,850 flights
These figures cover 3,398 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to DAL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 84.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,548 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,850 | 84.4% | 62 min | 2.00% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,548 | 77.6% | 58 min | 1.68% | B |
Delta leads Southwest by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 27 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am355 flights93.9%
- 8am–11am714 flights89.5%
- 11am–2pm357 flights85.9%
- 2pm–5pm936 flights80.4%
- 5pm–8pm401 flights66.8%
- 8pm–5am635 flights72.9%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.9% of the time, against 66.8% for the evening window. That is 27 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 936 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 73.2%. February is the strongest month at 88.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 15 points. October was the busiest month here, with 316 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.6%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 37,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 37,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 36,943 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 13,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 721 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 79.2% on time across 3,398 flights, within 2 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 3,398 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.
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 88.0% on time and May 73.2%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 3,307 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to DAL questions
How often is ATL to DAL delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.7% of the 3,398 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to DAL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 84.4% on time across 1,850 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.6%, a gap of 7 points. 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 DAL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.8%, 27 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 May delays on ATL to DAL?
May is the weakest month at 73.2% on time, compared with 88.0% in February. Across the year that is 15 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
- DAL to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record84.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. ATL to DAL and DAL to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.