Route reliability record
ELP→ATL
El Paso to Atlanta
- Flights
- 726
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,282 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 726 ELP to ATL flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly ELP to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 92.2%, against 88.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 110 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 708 completed flights
Avg delay
104 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.79%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
88.3% on time across 726 flights
These figures cover 726 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 ELP 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 | 726 | 88.3% | 104 min | 1.79% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on ELP 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 11 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm219 flights86.9%
- 2pm–5pm143 flights80.7%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
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 92.1% of the time, against 80.7% for the afternoon window. That is 11 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 364 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ELP 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 ELP to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.1% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 80.7%, a wide gap of 11.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.1%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm86.9%
- 2–5pm80.7%
- 5–8pm—
- 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.
January is the weak month at 82.1% on time, against 96.7% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 92.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 85.6%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 57% of the 8,645 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,928 of the 8,645 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,645 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 92.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.79% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.69%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.4% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,282 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.0% on time across 726 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 726 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ATL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 726 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 88.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 708 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ELP to ATL questions
How often is ELP 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 11.7% of the 726 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is ELP to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
88.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 11 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ELP to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 80.7%, 11 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 January delays on ELP to ATL?
January is the weakest month at 82.1% on time, compared with 96.7% in September. 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 ELP — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ELP to DFW, a related route78.4%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- ELP to PHX, a related route81.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.3%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ELP to ATL and ATL to ELP 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.