Route reliability record
ATL→SRQ
Atlanta to Sarasota
- Flights
- 2,289
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 444 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,289 ATL to SRQ flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to SRQ: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.1%, against 80.8% 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
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,247 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.66%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
80.8% on time across 2,289 flights
These figures cover 2,289 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 SRQ
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 | 2,289 | 80.8% | 57 min | 1.66% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to SRQ
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 Sarasota
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → SRQAtlanta to Sarasota | Delta Air Lines | 79.5% | 80.8% | 1.66% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 3196 08:05 |
| 2. ATL → TPAAtlanta to Tampa | Southwest Airlines | 74.5% | 75.1% | 0.82% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ATL → TPAAtlanta to Tampa | Delta Air Lines | 73.3% | 74.3% | 1.33% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2605 07:25 |
| 4. ATL → TPAAtlanta to Tampa | Frontier Airlines | 63.6% | 64.8% | 1.81% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 3782 10:03 |
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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am563 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm339 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm490 flights80.0%
- 5pm–8pm281 flights71.8%
- 8pm–5am616 flights75.7%
Scale runs 65% 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 71.8% for the evening window. That is 18 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 616 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to SRQ 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 SRQ, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 71.8%, a wide gap of 18.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am90.0%
- 11am–2pm83.1%
- 2–5pm80.0%
- 5–8pm71.8%
- 8pm–5am75.7%
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 18 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 71.6% on time, 18 points below September, the best at 89.5%. 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 228 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 24,529 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.66% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.2% 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.
At 444 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 87.8% on time across 2,289 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 2,289 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 SRQ 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 89.5% on time and July 71.6%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,247 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to SRQ questions
How often is ATL to SRQ delayed?
About 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 19.2% of the 2,289 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to SRQ compared with the rest of the country?
80.8% 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 SRQ?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.8%, 18 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 SRQ?
July is the weakest month at 71.6% on time, compared with 89.5% in September. Across the year that is 18 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
- SRQ to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- CLT to SRQ, a related route77.4%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.8%
- 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 SRQ and SRQ 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.