Route reliability record
ICT→ATL
Wichita to Atlanta
- Flights
- 1,147
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 782 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 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 1,147 ICT to ATL flights, with a median arrival 16 minutes early.
Best time to fly ICT to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.8% of the time and Friday flights 92.8%, against 87.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 103 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,124 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
87.9% on time across 1,147 flights
These figures cover 1,147 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 16 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 ICT 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 | 1,147 | 87.9% | 69 min | 1.39% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on ICT 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 13 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 flights95.8%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm444 flights85.2%
- 2pm–5pm4 flights—
- 5pm–8pm334 flights82.8%
- 8pm–5am—
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 95.8% of the time, against 82.8% for the evening window. That is 13 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 444 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 1,147 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 83.1% on time, against 93.5% in February. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 92.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 84.5%. 8 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 59% of the 9,345 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.
- 59%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, 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 5,536 of the 9,345 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,345 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 95.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.39% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.61%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.9% 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.
The 782 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 runs 86.8% on time across 1,147 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 1,147 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: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 82.8% on time against 95.8% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 13 points is the largest single thing you control here. Delta Air Lines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 1,124 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ICT to ATL questions
How often is ICT to ATL delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 12.1% of the 1,147 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is ICT to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
87.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 10 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ICT to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 82.8%, 13 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 ICT to ATL?
December is the weakest month at 83.1% on time, compared with 93.5% in February. Across the year that is 10 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 ICT — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- ICT to DFW, a related route78.0%
- LGA to ATL, a related route76.6%
- ICT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.9%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. ICT to ATL and ATL to ICT 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.