Route reliability record
ATL→PBI
Atlanta to West Palm Beach
- Flights
- 3,826
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 545 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 3,826 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
75.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,763 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.52%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
76.3% on time across 3,737 flights
These figures cover 3,826 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 PBI
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 | 3,737 | 76.3% | 52 min | 1.53% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 89 | 47.7% | 86 min | 1.12% | F |
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 29 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–8am161 flights93.4%
- 8am–11am748 flights82.6%
- 11am–2pm531 flights80.8%
- 2pm–5pm931 flights75.1%
- 5pm–8pm576 flights64.4%
- 8pm–5am879 flights71.5%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.4% on time, against 93.4% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 931 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.
December is the weak month at 65.3% on time, against 85.4% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 347 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.3%. 18 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 49% of the 49,000 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.
- 49%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, 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 24,000 of the 49,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 49,273 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.52% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.5% 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 roughly 55 minutes kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 545 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 82.9% on time across 3,826 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 3,826 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. September runs 85.4% on time and December 65.3%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 3,763 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to PBI questions
How often is ATL to PBI delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.3% of the 3,826 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is ATL to PBI compared with the rest of the country?
75.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to PBI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.4%, 29 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 PBI?
December is the weakest month at 65.3% on time, compared with 85.4% in September. 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
- PBI to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record47.7%
- 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 PBI and PBI 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.