Route reliability record
MCI→ATL
Kansas City to Atlanta
- Flights
- 3,246
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 692 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 a little over an hour. That rests on 3,246 MCI to ATL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,708 at 89.4% on time.
Best time to fly MCI to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 91.5%, against 86.4% 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 91 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,191 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.32%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
89.4% on time across 2,708 flights
These figures cover 3,246 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 MCI to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 89.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 365 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,708 | 89.4% | 74 min | 1.48% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 77.1% | 57 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 171 | 59.5% | 79 min | 1.17% | D |
The spread between Delta and Southwest is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCI 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 Kansas City to Atlanta
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MCI → ATLKansas City to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 88.1% | 89.4% | 1.48% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 1212 07:00 |
| 2. MCI → ATLKansas City to Atlanta | Southwest Airlines | 76.9% | 77.1% | 0.27% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 14 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am718 flights93.3%
- 8am–11am733 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm684 flights85.5%
- 2pm–5pm500 flights81.7%
- 5pm–8pm608 flights78.9%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
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 93.3% of the time, against 78.9% for the evening window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 733 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCI 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 MCI to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 78.9%, a wide gap of 14.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.3%
- 8–11am90.0%
- 11am–2pm85.5%
- 2–5pm81.7%
- 5–8pm78.9%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 12 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 80.1% on time, 12 points below September, the best at 92.1%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 307 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 91.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.0%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 31,076 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 93.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.32% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.37%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.7% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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 692 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 82.6% on time across 3,246 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,246 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 92.1% on time and July 80.1%, a swing of 12 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,191 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCI to ATL questions
How often is MCI 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 13.6% of the 3,246 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCI to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 89.4% on time across 2,708 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.1%, a gap of 12 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 MCI to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 78.9%, 14 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 MCI to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 80.1% on time, compared with 92.1% in September. Across the year that is 12 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 MCI — the return legseparate record
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MCI to ATL89.4%
- Southwest Airlines on MCI to ATL77.1%
- Frontier Airlines on MCI to ATL59.5%
- MCI to DEN, a related route78.1%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- MCI to ORD, a related route74.6%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.1%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MCI to ATL and ATL to MCI 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.