Route reliability record
GSO→ATL
Greensboro to Atlanta
- Flights
- 2,755
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 306 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns a 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 12 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 2,755 flights, with a median arrival 17 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 120 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,692 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.14%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
89.6% on time across 2,755 flights
These figures cover 2,755 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 17 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 GSO 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 | 2,755 | 89.6% | 96 min | 2.14% | A |
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am716 flights93.2%
- 8am–11am698 flights92.4%
- 11am–2pm332 flights89.9%
- 2pm–5pm440 flights86.4%
- 5pm–8pm403 flights84.2%
- 8pm–5am166 flights82.1%
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.2% of the time, against 82.1% for the overnight 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 716 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 2,755 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
December is the weak month at 86.1% on time, against 95.4% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 253 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 93.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 86.9%. 6 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 42% of the 27,000 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.
- 42%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%Extreme weather
- 8%National Airspace System
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 27,011 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 11,000 of the 27,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.14% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 306 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.8% on time across 2,755 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,755 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: avoid the 8pm–5am departure. It runs 82.1% on time against 93.2% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 11 points is the largest single thing you control here. Delta Air Lines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 2,692 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GSO to ATL questions
How often is GSO to ATL delayed?
About one flight in ten arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 10.4% of the 2,755 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is GSO to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
89.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 12 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on GSO to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 82.1%, 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 December delays on GSO to ATL?
December is the weakest month at 86.1% on time, compared with 95.4% in September. Across the year that is 9 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 GSO — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.6%
- 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. GSO to ATL and ATL to GSO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.