Route reliability record
ELP→ATL
El Paso to Atlanta
- Flights
- 724
- Period
- July 2025 to June 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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 724 ELP to ATL flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly ELP to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 93.4%, against 88.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 108 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 707 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.80%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
88.4% on time across 724 flights
These figures cover 724 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 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 | 724 | 88.4% | 96 min | 1.80% | 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.
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 10 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–8am365 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm278 flights86.2%
- 2pm–5pm81 flights81.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 81.2% for the afternoon window. That is 10 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
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 93.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 83.5%. 10 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. Carrier accounts for 57% of the 7,857 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.
- 57%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,511 of the 7,857 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,857 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 91.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.80% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.2% 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 last an hour and a half, 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.6% on time across 724 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. 724 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. 724 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 88.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 707 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 11.6% of the 724 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is ELP to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
88.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 91.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 81.2%, 10 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 route77.9%
- LGA to ATL, a related route76.6%
- ELP to PHX, a related route81.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.4%
- 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. 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.