Route reliability record
TUS→ATL
Tucson to Atlanta
- Flights
- 809
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,541 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 14 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 809 TUS to ATL flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly TUS to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.7% of the time and Thursday flights 95.8%, against 91.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 14 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 141 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
91.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 794 completed flights
Avg delay
121 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.73%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
91.4% on time across 809 flights
These figures cover 809 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 TUS 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 | 809 | 91.4% | 121 min | 1.73% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on TUS 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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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 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights96.7%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm334 flights86.3%
- 2pm–5pm110 flights89.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 80% 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 86.3% on time against 96.7% for 5am–8am. 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TUS 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 TUS to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.7% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 86.3%, a wide gap of 10.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.7%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm86.3%
- 2–5pm89.4%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
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 13 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 98.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 95.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 86.1%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 65% of the 8,209 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 65%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 65%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,350 of the 8,209 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,209 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.73% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.1% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% 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 1,541 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 82.4% on time across 809 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 809 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. 809 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 91.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 794 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TUS to ATL questions
How often is TUS to ATL delayed?
About one flight in twelve arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 8.6% of the 809 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is TUS to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
91.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 14 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TUS to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.7% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 86.3%, 10 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 March delays on TUS to ATL?
March is the weakest month at 85.5% on time, compared with 98.3% in September. Across the year that is 13 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 TUS — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- TUS to PHX, a related route83.6%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- TUS to DEN, a related route83.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record91.4%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. TUS to ATL and ATL to TUS 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.