Route reliability record
CVG→ATL
Cincinnati to Atlanta
- Flights
- 3,017
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 373 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a 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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 3,017 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 88 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,975 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.23%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
87.3% on time across 2,729 flights
These figures cover 3,017 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CVG 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 | 2,729 | 87.3% | 73 min | 1.21% | A |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 288 | 77.4% | 86 min | 1.39% | B |
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 14 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–8am666 flights92.9%
- 8am–11am530 flights90.7%
- 11am–2pm504 flights87.5%
- 2pm–5pm636 flights78.8%
- 5pm–8pm562 flights83.3%
- 8pm–5am119 flights81.7%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.9% of the time, against 78.8% for the afternoon window. That is 14 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 666 flights scheduled in it.
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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 96.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 284 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.4%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 30,000 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 30,402 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 92.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.23% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 373 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 82.0% on time across 3,013 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 3,017 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.
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 96.6% on time and March 77.5%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 2,975 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CVG to ATL questions
How often is CVG to ATL delayed?
About one flight in seven arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.6% of the 3,017 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CVG to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
86.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 CVG to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 78.8%, 14 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 March delays on CVG to ATL?
March is the weakest month at 77.5% on time, compared with 96.6% 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 CVG — the return legseparate record
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. CVG to ATL and ATL to CVG are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.