Carrier route record
DLLGA→ATL
Delta Air Lines · New York to Atlanta
- Flights
- 4,935
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 58%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on LGA to ATL carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,935 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 1,906 at 76.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on LGA to ATL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,752 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.5%
Every carrier on LGA to ATL, 8,500 flights
These figures cover 4,935 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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
Delta against every carrier on LGA to ATL
Delta flew 4,935 of the 8,500 flights on LGA to ATL, most of the route. Its 79.1% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 100.0% to Frontier at 54.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 76.4% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 54.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 949 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 4,935 | 79.1% | 73 min | 3.55% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 1,906 | 76.4% | 66 min | 5.25% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 700 | 75.1% | 74 min | 3.29% | B− |
| Frontier Airlines | 949 | 54.0% | 111 min | 7.69% | F− |
Frontier Airlines cancels 7.7% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on LGA to ATL
- DL 55006:0089.4% · 365 flights
- DL 99209:0086.0% · 358 flights
- DL 96817:0074.1% · 353 flights
- DL 99311:0082.6% · 352 flights
- DL 97415:0079.6% · 349 flights
- DL 34206:5993.1% · 349 flights
- DL 98813:5973.4% · 341 flights
- DL 99012:0082.8% · 333 flights
- DL 99413:0078.6% · 330 flights
- DL 98910:0082.3% · 328 flights
- DL 96418:0069.0% · 328 flights
- DL 96916:0067.6% · 323 flights
- DL 97520:3066.4% · 294 flights
- DL 36407:5991.1% · 280 flights
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 25 points, against 22 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am708 flights91.3%
- 8am–11am975 flights86.2%
- 11am–2pm1,007 flights81.4%
- 2pm–5pm1,030 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm921 flights69.4%
- 8pm–5am294 flights66.4%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.3% of the time, against 66.4% for the overnight window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,030 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on LGA to ATL through the year
December is the weak month at 66.8% on time, against 91.5% 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 436 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.7%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on LGA to ATL runs when it is late
Delta on LGA to ATL often beats the schedule: 1,866 of 4,752 completed flights, 39%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 991 late arrivals split 317 under half an hour, 297 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 377 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early1,866 flights39.3%
- Within 15 min1,895 flights39.9%
- 15–29 min late317 flights6.7%
- 30–59 min late297 flights6.3%
- 1–2 hours late229 flights4.8%
- 2+ hours late148 flights3.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 4,752 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
264 of 991 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 27% of them. In the other direction, 264 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ATL.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on LGA to ATL
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 March 2026, 18 hours 43 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 11 March 2026 | 18 hours 43 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 12 June 2026 | 16 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 October 2025 | 11 hours 41 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 2 January 2026 | 10 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 March 2026 | 8 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 72,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 31%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 72,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 to one. The split is drawn from 72,326 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 91.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.55%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 762 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 75.9% on time across 4,937 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 4,935 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 Delta on LGA to ATL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.55% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 4,752 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to ATL, every carrier
- Delta on ATL to LGA, the return leg
- Republic Airways on LGA to ATL76.4%
- Southwest Airlines on LGA to ATL75.1%
- Frontier Airlines on LGA to ATL54.0%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.