Route reliability record
CVG→ATL
Cincinnati to Atlanta
- Flights
- 3,012
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 373 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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 8 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 3,012 CVG to ATL flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly CVG to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.9%, against 85.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 81 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,971 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.20%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
86.4% on time across 2,715 flights
These figures cover 3,012 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 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 | 2,715 | 86.4% | 70 min | 1.22% | A |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 297 | 76.2% | 89 min | 1.01% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on CVG 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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am666 flights92.9%
- 8am–11am516 flights90.2%
- 11am–2pm553 flights85.1%
- 2pm–5pm638 flights76.8%
- 5pm–8pm506 flights83.7%
- 8pm–5am133 flights79.1%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.9% of the time, against 76.8% for the afternoon window. That is 16 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.
Explore
Filter CVG 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 CVG to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 76.8%, a wide gap of 16.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.9%
- 8–11am90.2%
- 11am–2pm85.1%
- 2–5pm76.8%
- 5–8pm83.7%
- 8pm–5am79.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
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. July was the busiest month here, with 284 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.0%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 31,688 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 1.20% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.9% 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 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 81.4% on time across 3,009 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 3,012 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 96.6% 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. 2,971 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.6% of the 3,012 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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?
85.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 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 76.8%, 16 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 CVG to ATL86.4%
- Frontier Airlines on CVG to ATL76.2%
- CVG to ORD, a related route70.8%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- CVG to BOS, a related route79.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record76.2%
- 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. 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.
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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.