Route reliability record
PBI→ATL
West Palm Beach to Atlanta
- Flights
- 3,475
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 545 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 3,475 PBI to ATL flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly PBI to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.9%, against 82.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 54 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,416 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.6% on time across 3,402 flights
These figures cover 3,475 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 PBI 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 | 3,402 | 83.6% | 64 min | 1.59% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 73 | 39.4% | 108 min | 2.74% | F |
Flight by flight
Flights on PBI 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.
- Delta 130108:0091.0% · 334 flights
- Delta 131111:0086.2% · 334 flights
- Delta 152712:5177.1% · 334 flights
- Delta 135207:0092.9% · 331 flights
- Delta 83816:5272.1% · 330 flights
- Delta 145818:1172.5% · 327 flights
- Delta 137606:0096.9% · 326 flights
- Delta 119013:5977.5% · 317 flights
- Delta 139409:1590.6% · 278 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly West Palm Beach 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PBI → ATLWest Palm Beach to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 82.3% | 83.6% | 1.59% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | DL 1376 06:00 |
| 2. FLL → ATLFort Lauderdale to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 77.0% | 78.5% | 1.92% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1168 05:25 |
| 3. FLL → ATLFort Lauderdale to Atlanta | Frontier Airlines | 61.7% | 63.7% | 3.18% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 2173 06:00 |
| 4. FLL → ATLFort Lauderdale to Atlanta | Spirit Airlines | 56.2% | 58.6% | 4.12% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. FLL → ATLFort Lauderdale to Atlanta | JetBlue Airways | 55.2% | 57.1% | 3.38% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 1698 09:00 |
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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am657 flights94.9%
- 8am–11am768 flights90.9%
- 11am–2pm686 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm538 flights75.7%
- 5pm–8pm790 flights72.8%
- 8pm–5am36 flights75.0%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.9% of the time, against 72.8% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 790 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PBI 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 PBI to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 72.8%, a wide gap of 22.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.9%
- 8–11am90.9%
- 11am–2pm78.9%
- 2–5pm75.7%
- 5–8pm72.8%
- 8pm–5am75.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 74.9%. June is the strongest month at 88.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 13 points. March was the busiest month here, with 347 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 75.5%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 40,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 40,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 39,721 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 94.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.61% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.3% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 545 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 75.8% on time across 3,475 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,475 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. June runs 88.0% on time and March 74.9%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 3,416 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PBI to ATL questions
How often is PBI to ATL delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.3% of the 3,475 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is PBI to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
82.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PBI to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.8%, 22 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 March delays on PBI to ATL?
March is the weakest month at 74.9% on time, compared with 88.0% in June. Across the year that is 13 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 PBI — the return legseparate record
- Palm Beach International (PBI) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- PBI to EWR, a related route75.8%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- PBI to LGA, a related route68.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record39.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PBI to ATL and ATL to PBI 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.