Route reliability record
ATL→DSM
Atlanta to Des Moines
- Flights
- 1,253
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 743 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 1,253 ATL to DSM flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to DSM: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.7%, against 84.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 74 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,221 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.39%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
84.7% on time across 1,253 flights
These figures cover 1,253 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to DSM
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 | 1,253 | 84.7% | 63 min | 2.39% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to DSM
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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 1,253 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am345 flights88.7%
- 11am–2pm225 flights87.4%
- 2pm–5pm334 flights81.4%
- 5pm–8pm7 flights—
- 8pm–5am342 flights81.6%
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 88.7% on time for the 8am–11am window against 81.4% for 2pm–5pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 345 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to DSM 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 DSM, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 88.7% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 81.4%, a real gap of 7.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am88.7%
- 11am–2pm87.4%
- 2–5pm81.4%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am81.6%
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 73.7% on time, 17 points below October, the best at 90.8%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 121 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 81.5%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,292 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,816 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.39% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
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.
The 743 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 88.9% on time across 1,254 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,253 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 DSM 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. October runs 90.8% on time and July 73.7%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,221 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to DSM questions
How often is ATL to DSM delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.3% of the 1,253 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to DSM compared with the rest of the country?
84.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 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 DSM?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 81.4%, 7 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 DSM?
July is the weakest month at 73.7% on time, compared with 90.8% in October. 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
- DSM to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- ORD to DSM, a related route70.8%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record84.7%
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
Direction matters. ATL to DSM and DSM to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ATL to DSM’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.