Route reliability record
SFO→ATL
San Francisco to Atlanta
- Flights
- 3,337
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,139 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 about an hour on average. That rests on 3,337 SFO to ATL flights, of which United Airlines flew 636 at 85.9% on time.
Best time to fly SFO to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.1%, against 80.2% 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
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,298 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.87%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
85.9% on time across 636 flights
These figures cover 3,337 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 SFO to ATL
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 636 | 85.9% | 50 min | 0.16% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,390 | 81.1% | 70 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 311 | 61.2% | 73 min | 3.54% | D− |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 85.9%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SFO 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Francisco 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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SJC → ATLSan Jose to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 91.8% | 92.9% | 1.22% | 5am–8am, Mon | DL 654 06:35 |
| 2. SFO → ATLSan Francisco to Atlanta | United Airlines | 85.8% | 85.9% | 0.16% | 8am–11am, Mon | — |
| 3. SFO → ATLSan Francisco to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 80.5% | 81.1% | 0.71% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 570 06:00 |
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 19 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am477 flights92.4%
- 8am–11am689 flights87.0%
- 11am–2pm535 flights80.6%
- 2pm–5pm321 flights75.3%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am1,315 flights73.2%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.4% of the time, against 73.2% for the overnight 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 1,315 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO 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 SFO to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 73.2%, a wide gap of 19.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.4%
- 8–11am87.0%
- 11am–2pm80.6%
- 2–5pm75.3%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am73.2%
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 26 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 62.9% on time, 26 points below February, the best at 89.0%. 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 318 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 77.1%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 44,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 44,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 33 to one. The split is drawn from 44,254 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 44,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.87%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.2% 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.
At 2,139 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.9% on time across 3,339 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,337 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. February runs 89.0% on time and July 62.9%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,298 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to ATL questions
How often is SFO 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 19.8% of the 3,337 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to ATL?
United Airlines leads at 85.9% on time across 636 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 81.1%, a gap of 5 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 SFO to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.2%, 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 July delays on SFO to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 62.9% on time, compared with 89.0% in February. Across the year that is 26 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 SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- United Airlines on SFO to ATL85.9%
- Delta Air Lines on SFO to ATL81.1%
- Frontier Airlines on SFO to ATL61.2%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- United Airlines on-time record85.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record61.2%
- 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. SFO to ATL and ATL to SFO 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.