Route reliability record
DFW→ATL
Dallas-Fort Worth to Atlanta
- Flights
- 6,672
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 731 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,672 DFW to ATL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,785 at 83.5% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to ATL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.0%, against 75.6% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 83.5% on time across 2,785 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,487 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.5% on time across 2,785 flights
These figures cover 6,672 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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 DFW to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 83.5% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 66.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 935 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,785 | 83.5% | 83 min | 2.59% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 78 | 81.6% | 42 min | 2.56% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 234 | 71.7% | 67 min | 3.42% | C− |
| American Airlines | 2,624 | 70.8% | 70 min | 2.59% | C |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 16 | 66.7% | 58 min | 6.25% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 935 | 66.2% | 72 min | 1.82% | C |
The spread between Delta and Frontier is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW 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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth 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. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → ATLDallas-Fort Worth to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 81.3% | 83.5% | 2.59% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 401 05:25 |
| 2. DAL → ATLDallas to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 79.5% | 81.2% | 2.06% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 516 06:00 |
| 3. DAL → ATLDallas to Atlanta | Southwest Airlines | 73.1% | 74.3% | 1.67% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. DFW → ATLDallas-Fort Worth to Atlanta | American Airlines | 69.0% | 70.8% | 2.59% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. DFW → ATLDallas-Fort Worth to Atlanta | Frontier Airlines | 65.0% | 66.2% | 1.82% | 8am–11am, Thu | F9 3022 10:00 |
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 18 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,422 flights82.8%
- 8am–11am1,358 flights83.6%
- 11am–2pm1,164 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,131 flights66.5%
- 5pm–8pm991 flights68.9%
- 8pm–5am606 flights65.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 83.6% of the time, against 65.3% for the overnight window. That is 18 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 1,422 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW 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 DFW to ATL, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 83.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.3%, a wide gap of 18.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am82.8%
- 8–11am83.6%
- 11am–2pm77.1%
- 2–5pm66.5%
- 5–8pm68.9%
- 8pm–5am65.3%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 63.8% on time, 20 points below February, the best at 83.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 588 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.0%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 117,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 117,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 116,959 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 83.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.52%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 731 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 runs 73.9% on time across 6,672 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 6,672 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. February runs 83.7% on time and July 63.8%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 6,487 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to ATL questions
How often is DFW 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 24.4% of the 6,672 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 DFW to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 83.5% on time across 2,785 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 66.2%, a gap of 17 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 DFW to ATL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.3%, 18 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 DFW to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 63.8% on time, compared with 83.7% in February. Across the year that is 20 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 DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DFW to ATL83.5%
- Spirit Airlines on DFW to ATL71.7%
- American Airlines on DFW to ATL70.8%
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to ATL66.2%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- DFW to LGA, a related route66.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.5%
- Envoy Air on-time record81.6%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record71.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DFW to ATL and ATL to DFW 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.