Route reliability record
ATL→ILM
Atlanta to Wilmington
- Flights
- 1,149
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 377 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, 7 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 1,149 ATL to ILM flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to ILM: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.4%, against 83.9% 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 66 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,138 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.96%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.9% on time across 1,149 flights
These figures cover 1,149 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 ILM
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 | 1,149 | 83.9% | 63 min | 0.96% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to ILM
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 Wilmington
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 → ILMAtlanta to Wilmington | Delta Air Lines | 83.1% | 83.9% | 0.96% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 3070 22:40 |
| 2. ATL → OAJAtlanta to Jacksonville | SkyWest Airlines | 73.0% | 74.9% | 2.58% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am229 flights94.7%
- 11am–2pm288 flights85.3%
- 2pm–5pm267 flights76.3%
- 5pm–8pm12 flights—
- 8pm–5am353 flights81.2%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 94.7% of the time, against 76.3% for the afternoon window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 353 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to ILM 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 ILM, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 94.7% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 76.3%, a wide gap of 18.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am94.7%
- 11am–2pm85.3%
- 2–5pm76.3%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am81.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
December is the weak month at 74.7% on time, against 89.5% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 120 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.1%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 11,606 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,332 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.96% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.6% 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 377 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 87.4% on time across 1,149 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 1,149 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 ILM 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 89.5% on time and December 74.7%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,138 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to ILM questions
How often is ATL to ILM 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 16.1% of the 1,149 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to ILM compared with the rest of the country?
83.9% 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 ILM?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 94.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 76.3%, 18 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 December delays on ATL to ILM?
December is the weakest month at 74.7% on time, compared with 89.5% in September. 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
- ILM to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- CLT to ILM, a related route77.2%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ATL to ILM and ILM 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.