Route reliability record
ECP→ATL
Panama City to Atlanta
- Flights
- 2,421
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 240 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 2,421 ECP to ATL flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly ECP to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 94.4%, against 85.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 85 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,370 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
85.8% on time across 2,421 flights
These figures cover 2,421 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 ECP 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 | 2,421 | 85.8% | 82 min | 2.02% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on ECP 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 Panama City 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 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ECP → ATLPanama City to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 84.1% | 85.8% | 2.02% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 3114 06:00 |
| 2. VPS → ATLValparaiso to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 82.4% | 84.1% | 2.05% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 3051 09:21 |
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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am662 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am481 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm530 flights84.6%
- 2pm–5pm352 flights78.8%
- 5pm–8pm396 flights79.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.0% of the time, against 78.8% for the afternoon window. That is 12 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 662 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ECP 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 ECP to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.0% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 78.8%, a wide gap of 12.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.0%
- 8–11am90.0%
- 11am–2pm84.6%
- 2–5pm78.8%
- 5–8pm79.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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 75.8% on time, 15 points below February, the best at 90.5%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 234 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 94.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 82.5%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 28,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
46% 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 5 to one. The split is drawn from 27,726 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 91.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.02% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.0% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 240 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 runs 83.2% on time across 2,421 flights, within 3 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 2,421 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 90.5% on time and July 75.8%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,370 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ECP to ATL questions
How often is ECP 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 14.2% of the 2,421 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is ECP to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
85.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 ECP to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 78.8%, 12 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 ECP to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 75.8% on time, compared with 90.5% in February. Across the year that is 15 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 ECP — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ECP to DFW, a related route77.9%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- ECP to CLT, a related route83.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.8%
- 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. ECP to ATL and ATL to ECP 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.