Route reliability record
ATL→MOB
Atlanta to Mobile
- Flights
- 930
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 302 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 930 ATL to MOB flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to MOB: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.5% of the time and Saturday flights 87.1%, against 79.8% 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
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 910 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.04%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
83.2% on time across 755 flights
These figures cover 930 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to MOB
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 | 755 | 83.2% | 78 min | 2.38% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 175 | 65.5% | 87 min | 0.57% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to MOB
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to Mobile
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 → GPTAtlanta to Gulfport | Delta Air Lines | 82.7% | 84.0% | 1.52% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 2718 13:45 |
| 2. ATL → MOBAtlanta to Mobile | Delta Air Lines | 81.2% | 83.2% | 2.38% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 2029 23:10 |
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am57 flights81.8%
- 11am–2pm190 flights85.5%
- 2pm–5pm227 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm179 flights77.8%
- 8pm–5am277 flights82.9%
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 85.5% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 72.3%. 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 277 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 68.8% on time, 20 points below October, the best at 88.6%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 110 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.1%. 16 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 15,000 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.
- 59%Carrier
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 9%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 8,754 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 14,813 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.04% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 302 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.6% on time across 930 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 930 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 MOB after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 930 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 79.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 910 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to MOB questions
How often is ATL to MOB 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 20.2% of the 930 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to MOB compared with the rest of the country?
79.8% 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 MOB?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 85.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.3%, 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 MOB?
July is the weakest month at 68.8% on time, compared with 88.6% in October. Across the year that is 20 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
- MOB to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to MOB83.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on ATL to MOB65.5%
- ATL to LGA, a related route73.4%
- DFW to MOB, a related route80.3%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record65.5%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. ATL to MOB and MOB 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.