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DelayAtlas

Carrier route record

OOXNAATL

SkyWest Airlines · Bentonville to Atlanta

Flights
720
Period
July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route
67%
Carriers
2
BGRADE

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.

SkyWest on XNA to ATL lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 720 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on XNA to ATL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

Key figures

On time

80.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 703 completed flights

Avg delay

95 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.08%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

84.1%

Every carrier on XNA to ATL, 1,076 flights

These figures cover 720 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

SkyWest against every carrier on XNA to ATL

SkyWest flew 720 of the 1,076 flights on XNA to ATL, most of the route. Its 80.4% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 84.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 91.5% to SkyWest at 80.4%. 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 XNA to ATL
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
Delta Air Linesthin sample35691.5%97 min0.84%A+
SkyWest Airlines (this page)72080.4%95 min2.08%B

Departure window

When SkyWest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

  • 5am–8am293 flights86.2%
  • 8am–11am148 flights77.9%
  • 11am–2pm92 flights79.1%
  • 2pm–5pm129 flights72.1%
  • 5pm–8pm58 flights78.6%
  • 8pm–5am

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.2% of the time, against 72.1% for the afternoon window. That is 14 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 293 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on XNA to ATL through the year

On-time rate by calendar month82J79F72M90A79M79JJASO83N83D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, March worst

April is the best month on the calendar at 90.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 104 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 73.1%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

On-time rate by day of the week73.1Mon73.5Tue86.5Wed86.1Thu81.7Fri80.2Sat81.3Sun
Monday: 73.1 percent on time. Tuesday: 73.5 percent on time. Wednesday: 86.5 percent on time. Thursday: 86.1 percent on time. Friday: 81.7 percent on time. Saturday: 80.2 percent on time. Sunday: 81.3 percent on time

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 67% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

  • Carrier
    67%
  • Extreme weather
    23%
  • National Airspace System
    10%

Extreme weather accounts for 23% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.7 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,102 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 8,736 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 2.08% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.

The 589 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.4% on time across 720 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 720 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.

What to do with this

Booking SkyWest on XNA to ATL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 720 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 80.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 703 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Related

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.