Route reliability record
ATL→ORF
Atlanta to Norfolk
- Flights
- 2,919
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 516 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 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 2,919 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
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
79.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,869 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.47%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
79.1% on time across 2,701 flights
These figures cover 2,919 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
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to ORF
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 | 2,701 | 79.1% | 55 min | 1.48% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 218 | 78.1% | 70 min | 1.38% | B |
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 20 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–8am235 flights91.2%
- 8am–11am540 flights84.6%
- 11am–2pm476 flights86.0%
- 2pm–5pm491 flights76.0%
- 5pm–8pm453 flights71.1%
- 8pm–5am724 flights73.3%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.2% of the time, against 71.1% for the evening window. That is 20 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 724 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 64.6% on time, 25 points below April, the best at 89.2%. 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 268 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.4%. 12 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 47% of the 34,000 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.
- 47%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, 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 16,000 of the 34,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 33,912 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.47% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.24%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 516 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 85.6% on time across 2,919 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,919 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 this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 89.2% on time and July 64.6%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,869 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to ORF questions
How often is ATL to ORF delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.0% of the 2,919 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to ORF compared with the rest of the country?
79.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point 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 ORF?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.1%, 20 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 ORF?
July is the weakest month at 64.6% on time, compared with 89.2% in April. Across the year that is 25 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
- ORF to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record78.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. ATL to ORF and ORF to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.