Route reliability record
ATL→ECP
Atlanta to Panama City
- Flights
- 2,421
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 240 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 6 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 2,421 ATL to ECP flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to ECP: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.1% of the time and Thursday flights 87.2%, against 83.2% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 59 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,362 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.94%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.2% on time across 2,421 flights
These figures cover 2,421 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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 | 2,421 | 83.2% | 61 min | 1.94% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to ECP
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to Panama City
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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → VPSAtlanta to Valparaiso | Delta Air Lines | 82.3% | 83.8% | 1.80% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 3051 08:20 |
| 2. ATL → ECPAtlanta to Panama City | Delta Air Lines | 81.6% | 83.2% | 1.94% | 8am–11am, Thu | DL 3048 08:05 |
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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am636 flights90.1%
- 11am–2pm429 flights83.0%
- 2pm–5pm380 flights78.8%
- 5pm–8pm494 flights77.5%
- 8pm–5am482 flights83.3%
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 90.1% of the time, against 77.5% for the evening window. That is 13 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 636 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to ECP 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 ECP, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 77.5%, a wide gap of 12.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am90.1%
- 11am–2pm83.0%
- 2–5pm78.8%
- 5–8pm77.5%
- 8pm–5am83.3%
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 16 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 71.6% on time, 16 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 87.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 79.3%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 24,219 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.94% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.50%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.0% 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 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 85.8% on time across 2,421 flights, within 3 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 2,421 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 ECP 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 88.0% on time and July 71.6%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,362 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.8% of the 2,421 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to ECP compared with the rest of the country?
83.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 90.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 77.5%, 13 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 71.6% on time, compared with 88.0% in September. Across the year that is 16 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
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- DFW to ECP, a related route74.4%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.2%
- 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 ECP and ECP 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.