Route reliability record
EYW→ATL
Key West to Atlanta
- Flights
- 1,460
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 646 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 close to two hours. That rests on 1,460 EYW to ATL flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Best time to fly EYW to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 92.3%, against 86.1% 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 88 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,429 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
86.1% on time across 1,460 flights
These figures cover 1,460 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 EYW 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 | 1,460 | 86.1% | 102 min | 1.85% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on EYW 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–8am308 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am57 flights76.4%
- 11am–2pm415 flights87.9%
- 2pm–5pm337 flights84.1%
- 5pm–8pm343 flights81.6%
- 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 92.5% of the time, against 76.4% for the morning 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 415 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter EYW 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 EYW to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.5% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 76.4%, a wide gap of 16.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.5%
- 8–11am76.4%
- 11am–2pm87.9%
- 2–5pm84.1%
- 5–8pm81.6%
- 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 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 74.0% on time, 20 points below October, the best at 94.3%. 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 126 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.8%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 20,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 20,249 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,790 of the 20,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.4% 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 646 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 83.0% on time across 1,460 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,460 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. October runs 94.3% on time and July 74.0%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,429 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EYW to ATL questions
How often is EYW 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 13.9% of the 1,460 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is EYW to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
86.1% 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 EYW to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.5% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 76.4%, 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 July delays on EYW to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 74.0% on time, compared with 94.3% in October. 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 EYW — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- EYW to MIA, a related route81.7%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- EYW to CLT, a related route82.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.1%
- 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. EYW to ATL and ATL to EYW 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.