Route profile
ATL→DAL
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Atlanta to Dallas, 721 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 61% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,751 flights. How this is calculated
ATL → DAL arrives on time 79.6% of the time; the return trip, DAL → ATL, arrives on time 79.0% of the time.
ATL → DAL spends 20.6 minutes on the ground on a 721-mile trip: 14.8 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at ATL and 5.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at DAL.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why ATL → DAL flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
ATL → DAL cancelled 134 of 10,751 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 80. The reason filed most often was the airline, 50.0% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 160 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 134 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
67 cancellations, 50.0% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
62 cancellations, 46.3% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
5 cancellations, 3.7% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
134 coded cancellations were recorded on ATL → DAL; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
40 min late
against a median of 6 min early
Percentiles over 10,751 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at DAL after arriving from ATL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 36% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 20% | High risk |
| 60 min | 13% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 6.2% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 3.5% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.25% of the time and diverts 0.46% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 10,568 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 40 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,751 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
ATL → DAL flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 91.4% of the time, against 67.5% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 23.9 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 94.6% on time from 797 flights
- 7 AM: 90.8% on time from 280 flights
- 8 AM: 89.0% on time from 1,039 flights
- 9 AM: 83.4% on time from 647 flights
- 10 AM: 87.1% on time from 955 flights
- 11 AM: 84.4% on time from 289 flights
- 12 PM: 83.3% on time from 334 flights
- 1 PM: 83.5% on time from 919 flights
- 2 PM: 76.6% on time from 510 flights
- 3 PM: 78.9% on time from 404 flights
- 4 PM: 76.0% on time from 1,173 flights
- 5 PM: 67.3% on time from 523 flights
- 6 PM: 70.8% on time from 350 flights
- 7 PM: 68.9% on time from 714 flights
- 8 PM: 63.5% on time from 546 flights
- 9 PM: 66.0% on time from 545 flights
- 10 PM: 77.3% on time from 726 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why ATL → DAL runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for ATL → DAL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is DAL, where the flight lands. Its figure counts departures from DAL, so it says more about how that airport copes than about this route. Bad weather cancels 9.8 times the normal rate at DAL against 3.3 times at ATL. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: ATL 3.4% against 1.0%, DAL 7.2% against 0.7%. Flights that did leave DAL in bad weather arrived on time 60.8% of the time, against 76.8% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | ATL | DAL |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 3.4% | 7.2% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.0% | 0.7% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 66.5% | 60.8% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.2% | 76.8% |
| Departures in bad weather | 105,854 | 15,025 |
Southwest Airlines (2.1% cancelled against 3.1% for the other carriers at ATL) cancelled fewer departures from ATL in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly worse.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at ATL
All departures from ATL| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 8,953 | 2.1%below the others | 3.1% |
| Delta Air Lines | 73,919 | 3.5%about level | 3.6% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from ATL and DAL, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from ATL on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: ATL (airlines), DAL, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 5,651 | 82.6% | 1.34% | -9 min | 6.0% |
| Southwest Airlines | 5,100 | 76.3% | 1.14% | -3 min | 6.8% |
Delta Air Lines flew 52.6% of the 10,751 flights listed.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 6.3 percentage points more often than Southwest Airlines on this route.
Other ways to fly Atlanta to Dallas–Fort Worth
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
| Route | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATL→DFW Atlanta to Dallas–Fort Worth | 20,334 | 72.8% | 2.09% | -2 min | 47 |
| ATL→DAL this route Atlanta to Dallas | 10,751 | 79.6% | 1.25% | -6 min | 69 |
ATL → DAL is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 79.6% on time, against 72.8% for ATL → DFW.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
DL1115 (10:00 AM) arrived on time 88.9% of the time, 10.3 points more often than DL2780 (4:36 PM) at 78.6%.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 9.9 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 78.7%
- Feb: 87.7%
- Mar: 81.6%
- Apr: 79.3%
- May: 71.3%
- Jun: 76.5%
- Jul: 70.3%
- Aug: 80.3%
- Sep: 84.5%
- Oct: 85.0%
- Nov: 83.3%
- Dec: 81.6%
July is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 17.4 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 69.6% from 323 flights
- August 2023: 72.9% from 333 flights
- September 2023: 83.3% from 314 flights
- October 2023: 83.6% from 331 flights
- November 2023: 85.6% from 292 flights
- December 2023: 84.0% from 275 flights
- January 2024: 77.1% from 239 flights
- February 2024: 90.9% from 219 flights
- March 2024: 79.6% from 265 flights
- April 2024: 75.6% from 266 flights
- May 2024: 67.9% from 323 flights
- June 2024: 83.5% from 352 flights
- July 2024: 67.1% from 362 flights
- August 2024: 85.5% from 312 flights
- September 2024: 83.3% from 306 flights
- October 2024: 89.9% from 316 flights
- November 2024: 85.0% from 297 flights
- December 2024: 78.9% from 288 flights
- January 2025: 73.8% from 255 flights
- February 2025: 84.6% from 241 flights
- March 2025: 84.1% from 293 flights
- April 2025: 79.9% from 274 flights
- May 2025: 73.2% from 303 flights
- June 2025: 65.1% from 307 flights
- July 2025: 75.4% from 315 flights
- August 2025: 82.8% from 313 flights
- September 2025: 86.8% from 305 flights
- October 2025: 81.5% from 316 flights
- November 2025: 78.9% from 284 flights
- December 2025: 82.0% from 270 flights
- January 2026: 85.4% from 258 flights
- February 2026: 88.0% from 244 flights
- March 2026: 80.7% from 274 flights
- April 2026: 82.5% from 262 flights
- May 2026: 73.2% from 293 flights
- June 2026: 80.1% from 264 flights
- July 2026: 69.3% from 267 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 80.9% against 79.9% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,751 ATL → DAL flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed