Route reliability record
BOS→ATL
Boston to Atlanta
- Flights
- 5,050
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 946 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 5,050 BOS to ATL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,726 at 80.8% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to ATL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.4%, against 76.8% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 80.8% on time across 3,726 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,926 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
80.8% on time across 3,726 flights
These figures cover 5,050 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BOS to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 80.8% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 62.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 453 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 3,726 | 80.8% | 75 min | 1.85% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 859 | 66.9% | 70 min | 3.61% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 453 | 62.6% | 62 min | 2.87% | D |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 12 | 50.0% | 61 min | 0.00% | F+ |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.6% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on BOS 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 69505:3586.0% · 365 flights
- Delta 32214:0078.0% · 364 flights
- Delta 97311:1579.1% · 360 flights
- Delta 45609:0589.4% · 359 flights
- Delta 38509:0586.4% · 347 flights
- Delta 92306:5587.2% · 342 flights
- Delta 246418:3574.9% · 316 flights
- Delta 63815:1076.6% · 275 flights
- Frontier 351112:0163.4% · 259 flights
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Boston 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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PVD → ATLProvidence to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 83.8% | 86.1% | 2.67% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 1023 06:00 |
| 2. BOS → ATLBoston to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 79.3% | 80.8% | 1.85% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 456 09:05 |
| 3. BOS → ATLBoston to Atlanta | JetBlue Airways | 64.5% | 66.9% | 3.61% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. BOS → ATLBoston to Atlanta | Frontier Airlines | 60.8% | 62.6% | 2.87% | 8am–11am, Fri | F9 3511 12:01 |
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 26 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am986 flights82.2%
- 8am–11am1,155 flights85.5%
- 11am–2pm860 flights76.9%
- 2pm–5pm856 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm857 flights70.0%
- 8pm–5am336 flights59.7%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.7% on time, against 85.5% for the 8am–11am 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,155 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS 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 BOS to ATL, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 85.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 59.7%, a wide gap of 25.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am82.2%
- 8–11am85.5%
- 11am–2pm76.9%
- 2–5pm72.1%
- 5–8pm70.0%
- 8pm–5am59.7%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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 67.3% on time, 16 points below June, the best at 83.0%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 480 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.5%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 82,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 82,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 42 to one. The split is drawn from 82,275 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 85.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.24% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.8% 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 946 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 72.8% on time across 5,054 flights, 4 points below 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 5,050 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. June runs 83.0% on time and July 67.3%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,926 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to ATL questions
How often is BOS to ATL delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.2% of the 5,050 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 BOS to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 80.8% on time across 3,726 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 62.6%, a gap of 18 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 BOS to ATL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 85.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.7%, 26 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 BOS to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 67.3% on time, compared with 83.0% in June. Across the year that is 16 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 BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on BOS to ATL80.8%
- JetBlue Airways on BOS to ATL66.9%
- Frontier Airlines on BOS to ATL62.6%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record66.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record62.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. BOS to ATL and ATL to BOS 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.