Carrier route record

DLSFO→ATL

Delta Air Lines · San Francisco to Atlanta

Flights: 2,390
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 72%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on SFO to ATL lands a B+, 4 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,390 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on SFO to ATL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

81.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,367 completed flights

Avg delay

70 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.71%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

80.2%

Every carrier on SFO to ATL, 3,337 flights

These figures cover 2,390 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.

Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on SFO to ATL

Delta flew 2,390 of the 3,337 flights on SFO to ATL, most of the route. Its 81.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.9% to Frontier at 61.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on SFO to ATL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	636	85.9%	50 min	0.16%	A+
Delta Air Lines (this page)	2,390	81.1%	70 min	0.71%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	311	61.2%	73 min	3.54%	D−

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on SFO to ATL

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.

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am477 flights92.4%
8am–11am330 flights86.9%
11am–2pm535 flights80.6%
2pm–5pm313 flights75.0%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am735 flights74.2%

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 74.2% for the overnight window. That is 18 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 735 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on SFO to ATL through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, July worst

July is the worst month at 62.3% on time, 29 points below February, the best at 90.9%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 227 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 77.7%, a spread of 10 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Delta on SFO to ATL runs when it is late

Delta on SFO to ATL often beats the schedule: 722 of 2,367 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 447 late arrivals split 177 under half an hour, 130 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 140 an hour or more.

15+ min early722 flights30.5%
Within 15 min1,198 flights50.6%
15–29 min late177 flights7.5%
30–59 min late130 flights5.5%
1–2 hours late88 flights3.7%
2+ hours late52 flights2.2%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 2,367 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 508 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 161 still arrived on time. 100 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for Delta on SFO to ATL

The latest arrival of the period was on 22 July 2026, 17 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of Delta on SFO to ATL in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
22 July 2026	17 hours 29 minutes	Carrier
31 July 2026	16 hours 29 minutes	Carrier
26 January 2026	12 hours 43 minutes	Carrier
17 March 2026	12 hours 17 minutes	Carrier
10 August 2026	11 hours 40 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
43%
Carrier
42%
National Airspace System
13%
Extreme weather
1%

43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 to one. The split is drawn from 31,357 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.71%, 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 costs

5.9% 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.

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 68.5% on time across 2,393 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,390 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 Delta on SFO to ATL

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 90.9% on time and July 62.3%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,367 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures