Route reliability record
ATL→PIT
Atlanta to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 2,737
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 526 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 6 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 2,737 ATL to PIT flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to PIT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 91.8%, against 83.2% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 59 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,685 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.75%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.6% on time across 2,452 flights
These figures cover 2,737 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 PIT
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 | 2,452 | 83.6% | 56 min | 1.92% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 285 | 79.2% | 55 min | 0.35% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to PIT
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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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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am261 flights92.9%
- 8am–11am405 flights91.4%
- 11am–2pm470 flights87.1%
- 2pm–5pm699 flights80.4%
- 5pm–8pm379 flights77.6%
- 8pm–5am523 flights76.2%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.9% of the time, against 76.2% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 699 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to PIT 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 PIT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 76.2%, a wide gap of 16.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.9%
- 8–11am91.4%
- 11am–2pm87.1%
- 2–5pm80.4%
- 5–8pm77.6%
- 8pm–5am76.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 71.7% on time, 18 points below September, the best at 89.4%. 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 251 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 91.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.1%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 25,268 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 92.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.75% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.1% 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 526 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 89.2% on time across 2,737 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,737 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 PIT 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 89.4% on time and July 71.7%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,685 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to PIT questions
How often is ATL to PIT 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 16.8% of the 2,737 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to PIT compared with the rest of the country?
83.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 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 PIT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 76.2%, 17 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 PIT?
July is the weakest month at 71.7% on time, compared with 89.4% in September. Across the year that is 18 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
- PIT to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to PIT83.6%
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to PIT79.2%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- ORD to PIT, a related route73.6%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.2%
- 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 PIT and PIT 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.