Route reliability record
AVL→ATL
Asheville to Atlanta
- Flights
- 1,997
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 164 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,997 AVL to ATL flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Best time to fly AVL to ATL: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 92.6%, against 86.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 90 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,970 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.35%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
86.3% on time across 1,997 flights
These figures cover 1,997 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 AVL to ATL
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 | 1,997 | 86.3% | 87 min | 1.35% | A |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Asheville to Atlanta
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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. GSP → ATLGreer to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 88.6% | 90.1% | 1.61% | 5am–8am, Thu | DL 3028 05:40 |
| 2. AVL → ATLAsheville to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 85.1% | 86.3% | 1.35% | 11am–2pm, 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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am439 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am356 flights88.6%
- 11am–2pm375 flights90.6%
- 2pm–5pm455 flights82.7%
- 5pm–8pm311 flights80.7%
- 8pm–5am61 flights78.3%
Scale runs 70% to 95%.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 90.6% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 78.3%. 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 455 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter AVL 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 AVL to ATL, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 90.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 78.3%, a wide gap of 12.3 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am89.6%
- 8–11am88.6%
- 11am–2pm90.6%
- 2–5pm82.7%
- 5–8pm80.7%
- 8pm–5am78.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
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 75.7% on time, 18 points below April, the best at 93.5%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 224 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.7%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 52% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 23,351 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.35% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 164 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 84.8% on time across 1,997 flights, within 2 points 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 1,997 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. April runs 93.5% on time and July 75.7%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,970 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AVL to ATL questions
How often is AVL to ATL delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.7% of the 1,997 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is AVL to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
86.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on AVL to ATL?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 78.3%, 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 AVL to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 75.7% on time, compared with 93.5% in April. 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
- ATL to AVL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- AVL to ORD, a related route73.3%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- AVL to CLT, a related route83.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.3%
- 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. AVL to ATL and ATL to AVL 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.