Route reliability record
ATL→RSW
Atlanta to Fort Myers
- Flights
- 2,806
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 515 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,806 ATL to RSW flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to RSW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.8%, against 76.8% 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
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,750 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.60%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
77.4% on time across 2,720 flights
These figures cover 2,806 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 RSW
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 | 2,720 | 77.4% | 57 min | 1.58% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 86 | 57.8% | 66 min | 2.33% | D |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to RSW
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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am44 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am673 flights85.0%
- 11am–2pm428 flights81.9%
- 2pm–5pm482 flights73.8%
- 5pm–8pm552 flights67.8%
- 8pm–5am627 flights73.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 67.8% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 673 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to RSW 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 RSW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.8%, a wide gap of 23.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.9%
- 8–11am85.0%
- 11am–2pm81.9%
- 2–5pm73.8%
- 5–8pm67.8%
- 8pm–5am73.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 64.9% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 87.5%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 283 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.9%, a spread of 21 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 52% of the 37,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 19,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 36,687 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.60% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.39%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.2% 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 515 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 85.4% on time across 2,806 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,806 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 RSW 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 87.5% on time and July 64.9%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,750 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to RSW questions
How often is ATL to RSW delayed?
About 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 23.2% of the 2,806 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to RSW compared with the rest of the country?
76.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to RSW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.8%, 23 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 RSW?
July is the weakest month at 64.9% on time, compared with 87.5% in September. Across the year that is 23 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
- RSW to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- ORD to RSW, a related route75.6%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record57.8%
- 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 RSW and RSW 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.