Route reliability record
SRQ→ATL
Sarasota to Atlanta
- Flights
- 2,289
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 444 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 11 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 2,289 SRQ to ATL flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly SRQ to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 93.9%, against 87.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 105 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,242 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.70%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
87.8% on time across 2,289 flights
These figures cover 2,289 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 SRQ 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 | 2,289 | 87.8% | 87 min | 1.70% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on SRQ 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 Sarasota 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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SRQ → ATLSarasota to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 86.3% | 87.8% | 1.70% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1499 06:00 |
| 2. TPA → ATLTampa to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 80.3% | 81.4% | 1.39% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2605 09:58 |
| 3. TPA → ATLTampa to Atlanta | Southwest Airlines | 75.1% | 76.2% | 1.50% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 4. TPA → ATLTampa to Atlanta | Frontier Airlines | 71.1% | 72.3% | 1.71% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 3053 16:46 |
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am696 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am194 flights92.0%
- 11am–2pm638 flights87.9%
- 2pm–5pm213 flights78.2%
- 5pm–8pm444 flights81.7%
- 8pm–5am104 flights82.5%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.2% of the time, against 78.2% for the afternoon window. That is 16 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 696 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SRQ 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 SRQ to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.2% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 78.2%, a wide gap of 16.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.2%
- 8–11am92.0%
- 11am–2pm87.9%
- 2–5pm78.2%
- 5–8pm81.7%
- 8pm–5am82.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 73.6% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 96.3%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 228 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 93.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.8%, a spread of 12 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 24,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 23,705 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,178 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.70% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.35%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.6% 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 444 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 80.8% on time across 2,289 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 2,289 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 96.3% on time and July 73.6%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,242 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SRQ to ATL questions
How often is SRQ to ATL delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 12.2% of the 2,289 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is SRQ to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
87.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 SRQ to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 78.2%, 16 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 SRQ to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 73.6% on time, compared with 96.3% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 SRQ — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- SRQ to CLT, a related route85.6%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- SRQ to BWI, a related route83.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.8%
- 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. SRQ to ATL and ATL to SRQ 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.