Route reliability record
ATL→TUS
Atlanta to Tucson
- Flights
- 809
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,541 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 809 ATL to TUS flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to TUS: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.2% of the time and Saturday flights 86.2%, against 82.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 51 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 794 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.73%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
82.4% on time across 809 flights
These figures cover 809 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 TUS
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 | 809 | 82.4% | 57 min | 1.73% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to TUS
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.
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–8am—
- 8am–11am179 flights84.4%
- 11am–2pm267 flights88.2%
- 2pm–5pm18 flights—
- 5pm–8pm12 flights—
- 8pm–5am333 flights76.6%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 88.2% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 76.6%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 333 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to TUS 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 TUS, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 88.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 76.6%, a wide gap of 11.6 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am84.4%
- 11am–2pm88.2%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am76.6%
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 25 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 69.4% on time, 25 points below April, the best at 94.3%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.7%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 8,035 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,035 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 to one. The split is drawn from 8,035 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,705 of the 8,035 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.73% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.3% 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 1,541 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 91.4% on time across 809 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 809 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 TUS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 809 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 82.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 794 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to TUS questions
How often is ATL to TUS delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.6% of the 809 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to TUS compared with the rest of the country?
82.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 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 TUS?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 88.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 76.6%, 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 July delays on ATL to TUS?
July is the weakest month at 69.4% on time, compared with 94.3% in April. Across the year that is 25 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
- TUS to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- PHX to TUS, a related route81.0%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ATL to TUS and TUS 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.