Route reliability record
ATL→ELP
Atlanta to El Paso
- Flights
- 724
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,282 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 724 ATL to ELP flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to ELP: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.6%, against 79.6% for the route overall.
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
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 710 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.80%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
79.6% on time across 724 flights
These figures cover 724 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 ELP
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 | 724 | 79.6% | 54 min | 1.80% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to ELP
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.
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 724 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm362 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm84 flights79.3%
- 8pm–5am278 flights75.2%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 83.1% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 75.2%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 362 flights scheduled in it.
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 71.7% on time, 17 points below October, the best at 88.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.8%. 10 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 59% of the 7,886 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.
- 59%Carrier
- 18%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, 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 4,646 of the 7,886 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,886 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.80% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.6% 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.
The 1,282 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 88.4% on time across 724 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 724 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ELP after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 724 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 79.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 710 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to ELP questions
How often is ATL to ELP delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.4% of the 724 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is ATL to ELP compared with the rest of the country?
79.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 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 ELP?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 83.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 75.2%, 8 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 ELP?
July is the weakest month at 71.7% on time, compared with 88.7% 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
- ELP to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route73.4%
- DFW to ELP, a related route67.7%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.6%
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
Direction matters. ATL to ELP and ELP 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.