Route reliability record
RIC→ATL
Richmond to Atlanta
- Flights
- 2,693
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 481 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a 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 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 2,693 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 111 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,639 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.89%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
89.3% on time across 2,624 flights
These figures cover 2,693 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on RIC 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 | 2,624 | 89.3% | 87 min | 1.87% | A |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 69 | 64.2% | 112 min | 2.90% | D |
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 half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am694 flights91.5%
- 8am–11am668 flights90.7%
- 11am–2pm405 flights91.7%
- 2pm–5pm402 flights87.2%
- 5pm–8pm481 flights81.2%
- 8pm–5am43 flights81.4%
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 91.7% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 81.2%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 694 flights scheduled in it.
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 78.7% on time, 16 points below September, the best at 94.7%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 254 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 93.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 84.1%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 27,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 45%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 12,000 of the 27,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 26,714 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.89% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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.
At 481 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.2% on time across 2,693 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,693 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.
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 94.7% on time and July 78.7%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,639 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RIC to ATL questions
How often is RIC to ATL delayed?
About one flight in nine arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.3% of the 2,693 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is RIC to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
88.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 RIC to ATL?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 91.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 81.2%, 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 RIC to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 78.7% on time, compared with 94.7% 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 RIC — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record64.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. RIC to ATL and ATL to RIC are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.