Route reliability record
ATL→MCI
Atlanta to Kansas City
- Flights
- 3,246
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 692 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, 5 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 3,246 ATL to MCI flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,707 at 84.0% on time.
Best time to fly ATL to MCI: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.7%, against 82.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 53 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,202 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
84.0% on time across 2,707 flights
These figures cover 3,246 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to MCI
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,707 | 84.0% | 60 min | 1.33% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 79.7% | 47 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 171 | 65.3% | 70 min | 0.58% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 84.0%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to MCI
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 Kansas City
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → MCIAtlanta to Kansas City | Delta Air Lines | 82.9% | 84.0% | 1.33% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 2471 08:20 |
| 2. ATL → MCIAtlanta to Kansas City | Southwest Airlines | 79.7% | 79.7% | 0.00% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
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 15 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am711 flights89.0%
- 11am–2pm621 flights88.5%
- 2pm–5pm866 flights78.2%
- 5pm–8pm381 flights74.3%
- 8pm–5am666 flights80.6%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.0% of the time, against 74.3% for the evening window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 866 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to MCI 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 MCI, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 89.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 74.3%, a wide gap of 14.7 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am89.0%
- 11am–2pm88.5%
- 2–5pm78.2%
- 5–8pm74.3%
- 8pm–5am80.6%
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 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 90.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 307 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.9%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 44% of the 33,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 33,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 33,013 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.5% 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.
The 692 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 86.4% on time across 3,246 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 3,246 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 MCI 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 90.3% on time and March 75.0%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 3,202 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to MCI questions
How often is ATL to MCI 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 17.4% of the 3,246 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to MCI?
Delta Air Lines leads at 84.0% on time across 2,707 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 79.7%, a gap of 4 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to MCI?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.3%, 15 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 March delays on ATL to MCI?
March is the weakest month at 75.0% on time, compared with 90.3% 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
- MCI to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to MCI84.0%
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to MCI79.7%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to MCI65.3%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- DEN to MCI, a related route76.5%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record84.0%
- 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 MCI and MCI 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.