Carrier route record
DLATL→LAS
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 3,329
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 69%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on ATL to LAS lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,329 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 719 at 77.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on ATL to LAS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,305 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.9%
Every carrier on ATL to LAS, 4,796 flights
These figures cover 3,329 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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
Delta against every carrier on ATL to LAS
Delta flew 3,329 of the 4,796 flights on ATL to LAS, most of the route. Its 77.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 82.2% to Frontier at 63.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 77.2% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 63.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 562 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 186 | 82.2% | 68 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 3,329 | 77.3% | 55 min | 0.60% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 719 | 77.2% | 48 min | 0.42% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 562 | 63.3% | 88 min | 2.31% | D |
The spread between Southwest and Frontier is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on ATL to LAS
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am163 flights83.8%
- 8am–11am678 flights85.8%
- 11am–2pm585 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm426 flights78.1%
- 5pm–8pm775 flights74.6%
- 8pm–5am702 flights68.7%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 85.8% of the time, against 68.7% for the overnight window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 775 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on ATL to LAS through the year
July is the worst month at 67.5% on time, 17 points below September, the best at 84.2%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 294 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 74.1%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 50% of the 41,000 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.
- 50%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, 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 21,000 of the 41,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 41,255 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.60%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 1,747 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 87.7% on time across 3,327 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,329 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 Delta on ATL to LAS
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.2% on time and July 67.5%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,305 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to LAS, every carrier
- Delta on LAS to ATL, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on ATL to LAS82.2%
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to LAS77.2%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to LAS63.3%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.