Route reliability record
PHL→ATL
Philadelphia to Atlanta
- Flights
- 5,793
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 666 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 5,793 PHL to ATL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,022 at 83.2% on time.
Best time to fly PHL to ATL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.3%, against 78.0% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 83.2% on time across 3,022 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,592 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.2% on time across 3,022 flights
These figures cover 5,793 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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 PHL to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 83.2% of the time; American Airlines manages 66.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 679 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 121 | 90.7% | 71 min | 2.48% | A |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,022 | 83.2% | 70 min | 3.11% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 846 | 81.7% | 70 min | 3.78% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 43 | 80.0% | 36 min | 6.98% | B− |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,082 | 66.7% | 71 min | 2.77% | C |
| American Airlines | 679 | 66.1% | 75 min | 2.65% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 3.8% 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
Flights on PHL 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 115206:4585.8% · 363 flights
- Delta 227012:1687.3% · 360 flights
- Frontier 255106:3073.0% · 314 flights
- Delta 118008:0085.0% · 313 flights
- Delta 126905:3090.4% · 299 flights
- Delta 110010:3083.9% · 290 flights
- Delta 116916:5977.9% · 256 flights
- Frontier 229708:3070.7% · 254 flights
- Frontier 100319:1067.1% · 252 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 Philadelphia 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. PHL → ATLPhiladelphia to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 80.6% | 83.2% | 3.11% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1269 05:30 |
| 2. PHL → ATLPhiladelphia to Atlanta | PSA Airlines | 78.6% | 81.7% | 3.78% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | — |
| 3. PHL → ATLPhiladelphia to Atlanta | Frontier Airlines | 64.9% | 66.7% | 2.77% | 8am–11am, Wed | F9 2551 06:30 |
| 4. PHL → ATLPhiladelphia to Atlanta | American Airlines | 64.3% | 66.1% | 2.65% | 8pm–5am, Tue | — |
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 11 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,228 flights83.3%
- 8am–11am1,216 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm863 flights75.6%
- 2pm–5pm943 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,283 flights73.0%
- 8pm–5am260 flights73.0%
Scale runs 65% to 90%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 83.8% of the time, against 73.0% for the overnight window. That is 11 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 1,283 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHL 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 PHL to ATL, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 83.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 73.0%, a wide gap of 10.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am83.3%
- 8–11am83.8%
- 11am–2pm75.6%
- 2–5pm73.9%
- 5–8pm73.0%
- 8pm–5am73.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 65.0% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 88.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 565 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.6%, a spread of 14 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 87,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 87,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 87,318 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 83.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.11%, 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 actually costs
8.5% 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 666 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 74.6% on time across 5,793 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 5,793 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.11% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 5,592 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to ATL questions
How often is PHL to ATL delayed?
Roughly 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 22.0% of the 5,793 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 PHL to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 83.2% on time across 3,022 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 66.1%, a gap of 17 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 PHL to ATL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.0%, 11 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 PHL to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 65.0% on time, compared with 88.0% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on PHL to ATL90.7%
- Delta Air Lines on PHL to ATL83.2%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to ATL81.7%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to ATL66.7%
- American Airlines on PHL to ATL66.1%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- PHL to ORD, a related route73.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record90.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record81.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to ATL and ATL to PHL 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.