Route reliability record
ATL→SJC
Atlanta to San Jose
- Flights
- 898
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,116 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 898 ATL to SJC flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to SJC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 89.8%, against 85.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 85 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 886 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.22%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
85.8% on time across 898 flights
These figures cover 898 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 SJC
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 | 898 | 85.8% | 58 min | 1.22% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to SJC
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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to San Jose
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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → SJCAtlanta to San Jose | Delta Air Lines | 84.8% | 85.8% | 1.22% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 809 09:40 |
| 2. ATL → SFOAtlanta to San Francisco | United Airlines | 76.5% | 76.9% | 0.47% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. ATL → SFOAtlanta to San Francisco | Delta Air Lines | 68.0% | 68.5% | 0.67% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 693 08:25 |
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 898 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am365 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm315 flights81.4%
- 8pm–5am218 flights85.0%
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.0% of the time, against 81.4% for the evening 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to SJC 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 SJC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 81.4%, a real gap of 8.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am90.0%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm81.4%
- 8pm–5am85.0%
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 26 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 69.3% on time, 26 points below December, the best at 95.3%. 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 89 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.4%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 7,258 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 16%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 16% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.7 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 7,258 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,980 of the 7,258 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.22% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.0% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 2,116 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 92.9% on time across 898 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 898 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 SJC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 898 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 85.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 886 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to SJC questions
How often is ATL to SJC delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.2% of the 898 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to SJC compared with the rest of the country?
85.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to SJC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 81.4%, 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 July delays on ATL to SJC?
July is the weakest month at 69.3% on time, compared with 95.3% in December. Across the year that is 26 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
- SJC to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International (SJC) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- SAN to SJC, a related route74.5%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.8%
- 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 SJC and SJC 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.