Route reliability record
AUS→ATL
Austin to Atlanta
- Flights
- 4,484
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 813 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 4,484 AUS to ATL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,162 at 86.1% on time.
Best time to fly AUS to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.9%, against 81.9% 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 46 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,415 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.27%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
86.1% on time across 3,162 flights
These figures cover 4,484 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 AUS to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 86.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,026 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,162 | 86.1% | 75 min | 1.49% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,026 | 77.9% | 54 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 295 | 51.2% | 75 min | 1.69% | F |
Delta leads Southwest by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on AUS to ATL
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.
- Delta 134405:2596.3% · 365 flights
- Delta 125806:4093.3% · 365 flights
- Delta 289908:0088.1% · 364 flights
- Delta 297610:5592.3% · 360 flights
- Delta 210415:0079.1% · 352 flights
- Delta 139717:0079.8% · 346 flights
- Delta 288612:3483.6% · 291 flights
- Delta 149118:2775.1% · 284 flights
- Delta 201113:3186.3% · 276 flights
- Frontier 470216:1449.8% · 273 flights
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 Austin to Atlanta
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. AUS → ATLAustin to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 84.8% | 86.1% | 1.49% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1344 05:25 |
| 2. AUS → ATLAustin to Atlanta | Southwest Airlines | 77.5% | 77.9% | 0.49% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 39 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am835 flights95.1%
- 8am–11am882 flights91.4%
- 11am–2pm927 flights83.3%
- 2pm–5pm816 flights73.1%
- 5pm–8pm965 flights69.8%
- 8pm–5am59 flights55.9%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.9% on time, against 95.1% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 965 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter AUS to ATL 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 AUS to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 55.9%, a wide gap of 39.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.1%
- 8–11am91.4%
- 11am–2pm83.3%
- 2–5pm73.1%
- 5–8pm69.8%
- 8pm–5am55.9%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 69.6% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 90.6%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 407 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.0%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 55,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 55,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 54,892 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 95.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.27% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.1% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 813 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 runs 81.0% on time across 4,497 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,484 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 ATL 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 90.6% on time and July 69.6%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,415 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AUS to ATL questions
How often is AUS to ATL 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 18.1% of the 4,484 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 86.1% on time across 3,162 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.9%, a gap of 8 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on AUS to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.9%, 39 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 AUS to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 69.6% on time, compared with 90.6% in September. Across the year that is 21 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
- ATL to AUS — the return legseparate record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on AUS to ATL86.1%
- Southwest Airlines on AUS to ATL77.9%
- Frontier Airlines on AUS to ATL51.2%
- AUS to DEN, a related route78.9%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- AUS to DFW, a related route74.9%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.9%
- 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. AUS to ATL and ATL to AUS 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.