Route reliability record
ATL→ROC
Atlanta to Rochester
- Flights
- 1,043
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 749 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 1,043 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 83.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.8%, against 77.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,016 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.21%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
77.8% on time across 1,043 flights
These figures cover 1,043 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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 | 1,043 | 77.8% | 54 min | 2.21% | 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.
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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 | 77.7% | 79.1% | 1.75% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 1384 09:00 |
| 2. ATL → ROCAtlanta to Rochester | Delta Air Lines | 76.1% | 77.8% | 2.21% | 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 1,043 flights.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am310 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm50 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm317 flights75.9%
- 5pm–8pm2 flights—
- 8pm–5am363 flights74.0%
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 83.8% of the time, against 74.0% for the overnight window. That is 10 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 363 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to ROC 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 ROC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 83.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 74.0%, a real gap of 9.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am83.8%
- 11am–2pm77.6%
- 2–5pm75.9%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am74.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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. August was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.8%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 50% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,116 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,167 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 83.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.21% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.38%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 55 minutes, 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.
The return leg runs 79.6% on time across 1,043 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,043 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. 1,043 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 77.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,016 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 five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.2% of the 1,043 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is ATL to ROC compared with the rest of the country?
77.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 83.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 74.0%, 10 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 route72.3%
- ORD to ROC, a related route73.3%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.8%
- 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 ROC and ROC 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.