Route reliability record
CHS→ATL
Charleston to Atlanta
- Flights
- 3,234
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 259 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 12 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 3,234 CHS to ATL flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly CHS to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 94.2%, against 88.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 116 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,172 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.73%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
89.0% on time across 3,231 flights
These figures cover 3,234 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 CHS 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 | 3,231 | 89.0% | 79 min | 1.73% | A |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 66.7% | 25 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on CHS 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.
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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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am896 flights94.1%
- 8am–11am676 flights93.2%
- 11am–2pm493 flights90.7%
- 2pm–5pm484 flights83.9%
- 5pm–8pm551 flights81.5%
- 8pm–5am134 flights75.4%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.1% of the time, against 75.4% for the overnight window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 896 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CHS 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 CHS to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 75.4%, a wide gap of 18.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.1%
- 8–11am93.2%
- 11am–2pm90.7%
- 2–5pm83.9%
- 5–8pm81.5%
- 8pm–5am75.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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 76.8% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 96.2%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 294 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 94.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 82.0%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 28,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 27,586 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 94.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.73% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.1% 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.
At 259 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.3% on time across 3,235 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,234 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 96.2% on time and July 76.8%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,172 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CHS to ATL questions
How often is CHS to ATL delayed?
About one flight in nine arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.1% of the 3,234 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CHS to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
88.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 12 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CHS to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 75.4%, 19 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 CHS to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 76.8% on time, compared with 96.2% in September. Across the year that is 19 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 CHS — the return legseparate record
- Charleston International (CHS) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- CHS to CLT, a related route82.7%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- CHS to ORD, a related route76.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record66.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
Direction matters. CHS to ATL and ATL to CHS 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.