Route reliability record
PNS→ATL
Pensacola to Atlanta
- Flights
- 2,806
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 272 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 12 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 2,806 PNS to ATL flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Best time to fly PNS to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 94.0%, against 88.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 115 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,751 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.82%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
88.8% on time across 2,806 flights
These figures cover 2,806 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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 PNS 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 | 2,806 | 88.8% | 89 min | 1.82% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on PNS 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Pensacola 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. PNS → ATLPensacola to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 87.2% | 88.8% | 1.82% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 3019 06:00 |
| 2. VPS → ATLValparaiso to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 82.4% | 84.1% | 2.05% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 3051 09:21 |
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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am710 flights92.6%
- 8am–11am657 flights91.2%
- 11am–2pm601 flights90.4%
- 2pm–5pm442 flights84.8%
- 5pm–8pm396 flights80.0%
- 8pm–5am—
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 92.6% of the time, against 80.0% for the evening window. That is 13 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 710 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PNS 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 PNS to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 80.0%, a wide gap of 12.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.6%
- 8–11am91.2%
- 11am–2pm90.4%
- 2–5pm84.8%
- 5–8pm80.0%
- 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 21 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 76.5% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 97.7%. 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 265 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 94.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 85.0%, a spread of 9 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 28,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 14%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 27,538 reported delay minutes.
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations sit at 1.82% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.3% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 272 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 82.1% on time across 2,806 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 2,806 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 97.7% on time and July 76.5%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,751 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PNS to ATL questions
How often is PNS 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 11.2% of the 2,806 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is PNS to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
88.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 12 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PNS to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 80.0%, 13 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 PNS to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 76.5% on time, compared with 97.7% in September. Across the year that is 21 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 PNS — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- PNS to CLT, a related route83.5%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- PNS to DFW, a related route73.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.8%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PNS to ATL and ATL to PNS 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.