Route reliability record
MKE→ATL
Milwaukee to Atlanta
- Flights
- 2,264
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 669 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 2,264 MKE to ATL flights, with a median arrival 16 minutes early.
Best time to fly MKE to ATL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.7% of the time and Thursday flights 91.5%, against 88.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 112 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,212 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.99%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
89.1% on time across 2,202 flights
These figures cover 2,264 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MKE 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 | 2,202 | 89.1% | 89 min | 2.00% | A |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 62 | 67.2% | 55 min | 1.61% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on MKE 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.
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
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 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am730 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am362 flights93.7%
- 11am–2pm374 flights88.5%
- 2pm–5pm428 flights86.0%
- 5pm–8pm370 flights83.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 93.7% of the time, against 83.3% for the evening window. That is 10 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 730 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MKE 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 MKE to ATL, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 93.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 83.3%, a wide gap of 10.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am89.9%
- 8–11am93.7%
- 11am–2pm88.5%
- 2–5pm86.0%
- 5–8pm83.3%
- 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 16 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 79.5% on time, 16 points below September, the best at 95.2%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 216 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 91.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 83.7%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 22,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,477 of the 22,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 21,906 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.99% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.31%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% 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 669 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 82.8% on time across 2,264 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 2,264 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 95.2% on time and July 79.5%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,212 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MKE to ATL questions
How often is MKE to ATL delayed?
About one flight in nine arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.5% of the 2,264 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MKE to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
88.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 11 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MKE to ATL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 93.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 83.3%, 10 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 MKE to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 79.5% on time, compared with 95.2% in September. Across the year that is 16 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 MKE — the return legseparate record
- Milwaukee Mitchell International (MKE) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- MKE to ORD, a related route68.4%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- MKE to DEN, a related route78.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record67.2%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. MKE to ATL and ATL to MKE are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed MKE to ATL’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.