Route reliability record
OAJ→ATL
Jacksonville to Atlanta
- Flights
- 735
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 399 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 3 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 close to two hours on average. That rests on 735 OAJ to ATL flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly OAJ to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.6% of the time and Thursday flights 86.5%, against 79.8% 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
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 712 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.86%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
79.8% on time across 735 flights
These figures cover 735 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on OAJ 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 735 | 79.8% | 108 min | 2.86% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Jacksonville 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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ILM → ATLWilmington to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 86.4% | 87.4% | 1.13% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. OAJ → ATLJacksonville to Atlanta | SkyWest Airlines | 77.5% | 79.8% | 2.86% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am212 flights87.6%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm203 flights86.9%
- 2pm–5pm201 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm119 flights69.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.6% of the time, against 69.0% for the evening window. That is 19 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 212 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter OAJ 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 OAJ to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.0%, a wide gap of 18.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.6%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm86.9%
- 2–5pm70.9%
- 5–8pm69.0%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 91.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 70% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%Carrier
- 26%Extreme weather
- 4%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 26% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 4.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 15,555 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.86%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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 actually costs
10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 399 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.9% on time across 736 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 735 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ATL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.86% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 712 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
OAJ to ATL questions
How often is OAJ 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 20.2% of the 735 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is OAJ to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
79.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on OAJ to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.0%, 19 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 May delays on OAJ to ATL?
May is the weakest month at 71.1% on time, compared with 91.4% in April. Across the year that is 20 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 OAJ — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record79.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. OAJ to ATL and ATL to OAJ 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.