Route reliability record
ATL→SYR
Atlanta to Syracuse
- Flights
- 1,124
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 794 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 3 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 1,124 ATL to SYR flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to SYR: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 91.8%, against 80.0% 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
80.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,102 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.87%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
80.0% on time across 1,096 flights
These figures cover 1,124 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 SYR
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 28 | 81.5% | 59 min | 3.57% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,096 | 80.0% | 55 min | 1.82% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to SYR
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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am5 flights—
- 8am–11am335 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm115 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm304 flights79.6%
- 5pm–8pm2 flights—
- 8pm–5am363 flights74.4%
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 86.5% of the time, against 74.4% for the overnight window. That is 12 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 SYR 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 SYR, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 86.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 74.4%, a wide gap of 12.1 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am86.5%
- 11am–2pm80.7%
- 2–5pm79.6%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am74.4%
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 19 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 68.2% on time, against 87.5% in April. 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 118 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 91.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.3%, a spread of 18 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
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,054 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,115 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.87% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 794 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 83.3% on time across 1,124 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,124 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 SYR 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. April runs 87.5% on time and December 68.2%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,102 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to SYR questions
How often is ATL to SYR 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 20.0% of the 1,124 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to SYR compared with the rest of the country?
80.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 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 SYR?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 74.4%, 12 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 SYR?
December is the weakest month at 68.2% on time, compared with 87.5% in April. Across the year that is 19 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
- SYR to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- ORD to SYR, a related route74.7%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record81.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.0%
- 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 SYR and SYR 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.