Route reliability record
ATL→ROC
Atlanta to Rochester
- Flights
- 1,040
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 749 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 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 1,040 ATL to ROC flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to ROC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.3%, against 77.7% 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
77.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,011 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.50%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
77.7% on time across 1,040 flights
These figures cover 1,040 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 ROC
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 | 1,040 | 77.7% | 55 min | 2.50% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to ROC
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 Rochester
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 → BUFAtlanta to Buffalo | Delta Air Lines | 79.7% | 81.2% | 1.84% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 1384 09:00 |
| 2. ATL → ROCAtlanta to Rochester | Delta Air Lines | 75.8% | 77.7% | 2.50% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 2511 09:48 |
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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 1,040 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am312 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm49 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm314 flights75.6%
- 5pm–8pm3 flights—
- 8pm–5am362 flights74.6%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 83.3% of the time, against 74.6% for the overnight window. That is 9 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 362 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 35 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 54.8% on time, against 89.3% in June. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 91 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.2%. 11 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 52% of the 12,000 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.
- 52%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, 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 6,432 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,445 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 83.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.50%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.8% 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 last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 749 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 81.1% on time across 1,040 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,040 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 ROC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,040 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 77.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,011 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to ROC questions
How often is ATL to ROC delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.3% of the 1,040 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to ROC compared with the rest of the country?
77.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half 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 ROC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 74.6%, 9 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 ROC?
December is the weakest month at 54.8% on time, compared with 89.3% in June. Across the year that is 35 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
- ROC to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route73.4%
- ORD to ROC, a related route74.2%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. ATL to ROC and ROC to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ATL to ROC’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.