Route reliability record
ATL→ECP
Atlanta to Panama City
- Flights
- 2,426
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 240 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 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 2,426 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 64 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,372 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.81%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
84.0% on time across 2,426 flights
These figures cover 2,426 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 ECP
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 | 2,426 | 84.0% | 57 min | 1.81% | B |
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 12 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–11am632 flights90.4%
- 11am–2pm395 flights83.6%
- 2pm–5pm420 flights81.1%
- 5pm–8pm509 flights78.9%
- 8pm–5am470 flights83.7%
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 90.4% of the time, against 78.9% for the evening window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 632 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 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 74.3% on time, 14 points below September, the best at 88.0%. 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 233 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 88.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 80.7%. 7 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 57% of the 22,000 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.
- 57%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, 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 12,000 of the 22,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 21,700 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.81% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.4% 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 240 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 86.2% on time across 2,426 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 2,426 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. September runs 88.0% on time and July 74.3%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,372 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to ECP questions
How often is ATL to ECP delayed?
About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.0% of the 2,426 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to ECP compared with the rest of the country?
84.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 ECP?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 78.9%, 12 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 ECP?
July is the weakest month at 74.3% on time, compared with 88.0% in September. Across the year that is 14 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
- ECP to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record84.0%
- 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 ECP and ECP 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.