Route reliability record
SNA→ATL
Santa Ana to Atlanta
- Flights
- 1,020
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,919 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,020 SNA to ATL flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly SNA to ATL: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.3% of the time and Thursday flights 83.2%, against 79.9% 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
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,002 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.98%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
79.9% on time across 1,020 flights
These figures cover 1,020 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 SNA 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 | 1,020 | 79.9% | 98 min | 0.98% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on SNA 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 Santa Ana 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ONT → ATLOntario to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 87.4% | 89.0% | 1.82% | 8pm–5am, Tue | DL 761 07:05 |
| 2. LAX → ATLLos Angeles to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 80.1% | 80.8% | 0.84% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 390 06:00 |
| 3. SNA → ATLSanta Ana to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 79.1% | 79.9% | 0.98% | 8pm–5am, Thu | DL 721 06:45 |
| 4. LAX → ATLLos Angeles to Atlanta | Frontier Airlines | 67.1% | 68.2% | 1.64% | 2pm–5pm, Thu | F9 3216 23:34 |
| 5. LAX → ATLLos Angeles to Atlanta | American Airlines | 66.1% | 66.5% | 0.53% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am359 flights80.1%
- 8am–11am6 flights—
- 11am–2pm365 flights75.1%
- 2pm–5pm159 flights77.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am131 flights95.3%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 75.1% on time against 95.3% for 8pm–5am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SNA 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 SNA to ATL, the best departure window is 8pm–5am at 95.3% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 75.1%, a wide gap of 20.2 points. All US flights leaving 8pm–5am ran 70.1%.
- 5–8am80.1%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm75.1%
- 2–5pm77.8%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am95.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
December is the weak month at 71.8% on time, against 88.3% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. September was the busiest month here, with 103 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.2%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 60% of the 20,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 20,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 19,669 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.98% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.78%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.4% 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 1,919 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 76.0% on time across 1,020 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,020 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ATL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,020 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 79.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,002 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SNA to ATL questions
How often is SNA 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 20.1% of the 1,020 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is SNA to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
79.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SNA to ATL?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 95.3% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 75.1%, 20 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 December delays on SNA to ATL?
December is the weakest month at 71.8% on time, compared with 88.3% in April. Across the year that is 17 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 SNA — the return legseparate record
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- SNA to SFO, a related route65.5%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- SNA to PHX, a related route82.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.9%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. SNA to ATL and ATL to SNA 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.