Route reliability record
ATL→RIC
Atlanta to Richmond
- Flights
- 2,668
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 481 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,668 ATL to RIC flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to RIC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.8% of the time and Thursday flights 88.6%, against 81.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 43 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,610 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.99%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
82.1% on time across 2,599 flights
These figures cover 2,668 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 RIC
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 | 2,599 | 82.1% | 57 min | 1.96% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 69 | 64.2% | 67 min | 2.90% | D |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to RIC
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am277 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am414 flights88.1%
- 11am–2pm286 flights89.1%
- 2pm–5pm553 flights79.2%
- 5pm–8pm492 flights72.9%
- 8pm–5am646 flights78.3%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.8% of the time, against 72.9% 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 646 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to RIC 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 RIC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 72.9%, a wide gap of 19.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.8%
- 8–11am88.1%
- 11am–2pm89.1%
- 2–5pm79.2%
- 5–8pm72.9%
- 8pm–5am78.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 69.7% on time, 22 points below February, the best at 91.4%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 235 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.6%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 52% of the 27,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 27,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 27,334 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 92.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.99% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.8% 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.
At 481 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 88.5% on time across 2,668 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 2,668 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 RIC 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. February runs 91.4% on time and July 69.7%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,610 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to RIC questions
How often is ATL to RIC delayed?
Roughly 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 18.4% of the 2,668 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to RIC compared with the rest of the country?
81.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 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 RIC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.9%, 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 RIC?
July is the weakest month at 69.7% on time, compared with 91.4% in February. Across the year that is 22 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
- RIC to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- CLT to RIC, a related route76.1%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record64.2%
- 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 RIC and RIC 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.