Route reliability record
HOU→ATL
Houston to Atlanta
- Flights
- 2,850
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 696 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,850 HOU to ATL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,386 at 84.6% on time.
Best time to fly HOU to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.9% of the time and Thursday flights 81.7%, against 79.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,802 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.33%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
84.6% on time across 1,386 flights
These figures cover 2,850 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 HOU to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 84.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 74.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,464 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,386 | 84.6% | 96 min | 2.09% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,464 | 74.2% | 50 min | 0.61% | C+ |
Delta leads Southwest by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on HOU 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 Houston 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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. HOU → ATLHouston to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 82.8% | 84.6% | 2.09% | 5am–8am, Thu | DL 2557 06:00 |
| 2. IAH → ATLHouston to Atlanta | United Airlines | 79.4% | 79.8% | 0.47% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1030 07:20 |
| 3. IAH → ATLHouston to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 78.8% | 80.4% | 2.04% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1069 05:30 |
| 4. HOU → ATLHouston to Atlanta | Southwest Airlines | 73.7% | 74.2% | 0.61% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 5. IAH → ATLHouston to Atlanta | Frontier Airlines | 60.1% | 61.7% | 2.54% | 8am–11am, Thu | F9 1404 06:00 |
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 34 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am462 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am573 flights86.2%
- 11am–2pm549 flights84.0%
- 2pm–5pm391 flights74.0%
- 5pm–8pm743 flights69.9%
- 8pm–5am132 flights56.8%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.8% on time, against 90.9% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 743 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HOU 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 HOU to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 56.8%, a wide gap of 34.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.9%
- 8–11am86.2%
- 11am–2pm84.0%
- 2–5pm74.0%
- 5–8pm69.9%
- 8pm–5am56.8%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 92.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 256 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.2%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 44% of the 39,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 to one. The split is drawn from 38,694 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 39,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.33% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.35%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 696 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 runs 80.0% on time across 2,847 flights, within about a point 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 2,850 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. September runs 92.4% on time and March 67.4%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 2,802 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HOU to ATL questions
How often is HOU to ATL delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.8% of the 2,850 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on HOU to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 84.6% on time across 1,386 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 74.2%, a gap of 10 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on HOU to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 56.8%, 34 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 March delays on HOU to ATL?
March is the weakest month at 67.4% on time, compared with 92.4% in September. Across the year that is 25 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 HOU — the return legseparate record
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on HOU to ATL84.6%
- Southwest Airlines on HOU to ATL74.2%
- HOU to DAL, a related route81.6%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- HOU to DEN, a related route77.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record84.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. HOU to ATL and ATL to HOU 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.