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DelayAtlas

Carrier route record

OOATLXNA

SkyWest Airlines · Atlanta to Bentonville

Flights
720
Period
July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route
67%
Carriers
2
BGRADE

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.

SkyWest on ATL to XNA lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 720 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on ATL to XNA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

Key figures

On time

77.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 702 completed flights

Avg delay

108 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.36%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.9%

Every carrier on ATL to XNA, 1,075 flights

These figures cover 720 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

SkyWest against every carrier on ATL to XNA

SkyWest flew 720 of the 1,075 flights on ATL to XNA, most of the route. Its 77.4% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 85.1% to SkyWest at 77.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on ATL to XNA
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
Delta Air Linesthin sample35585.1%72 min0.85%A+
SkyWest Airlines (this page)72077.4%108 min2.36%B

Departure window

When SkyWest runs best on this route

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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

  • 5am–8am
  • 8am–11am189 flights75.8%
  • 11am–2pm66 flights65.2%
  • 2pm–5pm77 flights81.8%
  • 5pm–8pm168 flights74.8%
  • 8pm–5am220 flights82.7%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 65.2% on time against 82.7% for 8pm–5am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 220 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on ATL to XNA through the year

On-time rate by calendar month83J67F72M84A78M79JJASO82N77D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, February worst

February is the weak month at 67.2% on time, against 83.5% 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. May was the busiest month here, with 104 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.6%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

On-time rate by day of the week70.6Mon74.5Tue86.3Wed78.9Thu76.9Fri79.5Sat76.0Sun
Monday: 70.6 percent on time. Tuesday: 74.5 percent on time. Wednesday: 86.3 percent on time. Thursday: 78.9 percent on time. Friday: 76.9 percent on time. Saturday: 79.5 percent on time. Sunday: 76.0 percent on time

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 74% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

  • Carrier
    74%
  • Extreme weather
    14%
  • National Airspace System
    11%
  • Security
    1%

Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 17,187 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 74%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 13,000 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 2.36% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The 589 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.4% on time across 720 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 720 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.

What to do with this

Booking SkyWest on ATL to XNA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 720 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 77.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 702 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Related

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.