Route profile
ATL→SFO
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Atlanta to San Francisco, 2,139 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 33% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,076 flights. How this is calculated
ATL → SFO arrives on time 72.6% of the time; the return trip, SFO → ATL, arrives on time 81.1% of the time, an 8.5-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
ATL → SFO spends 28.2 minutes on the ground on a 2,139-mile trip: 19.0 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at ATL and 9.2 minutes from touchdown to gate at SFO.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why ATL → SFO flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
ATL → SFO cancelled 85 of 10,076 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 119. The reason filed most often was the airline, 64.7% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 183 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 85 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.
55 cancellations, 64.7% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
29 cancellations, 34.1% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
1 cancellation, 1.2% 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. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
85 coded cancellations were recorded on ATL → SFO; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
51 min late
against a median of 1 min early
Percentiles over 10,076 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SFO after arriving from ATL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 47% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 27% | High risk |
| 60 min | 17% | High risk |
| 90 min | 8.2% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.6% | 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 0.84% of the time and diverts 0.17% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 9,974 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 51 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,076 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
ATL → SFO flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 81.1% of the time, against 63.6% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 17.5 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 87.8% on time from 132 flights
- 7 AM: 81.7% on time from 793 flights
- 8 AM: 80.0% on time from 1,211 flights
- 9 AM: 67.0% on time from 280 flights
- 10 AM: 79.5% on time from 647 flights
- 11 AM: 73.7% on time from 478 flights
- 12 PM: 77.7% on time from 393 flights
- 1 PM: too few flights to score
- 2 PM: 76.0% on time from 399 flights
- 3 PM: 69.7% on time from 700 flights
- 4 PM: 66.0% on time from 447 flights
- 5 PM: 75.3% on time from 785 flights
- 6 PM: 67.4% on time from 1,013 flights
- 7 PM: 59.9% on time from 1,140 flights
- 8 PM: 64.2% on time from 645 flights
- 9 PM: 77.1% on time from 642 flights
- 10 PM: 72.1% on time from 338 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why ATL → SFO runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
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 → SFO. 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 the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 3.3 times the normal rate at ATL against 1.7 times at SFO. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: ATL 3.4% against 1.0%, SFO 1.5% against 0.9%. Flights that did leave ATL in bad weather arrived on time 66.5% of the time, against 80.2% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | ATL | SFO |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 3.4% | 1.5% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.0% | 0.9% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 66.5% | 73.0% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.2% | 79.8% |
| Departures in bad weather | 105,854 | 36,006 |
Of the carriers on this route, United Airlines (2.6% cancelled against 3.6% for the other carriers at ATL) cancelled the fewest departures from ATL in bad weather and Frontier Airlines (5.0% cancelled against 3.8% for the other carriers at ATL) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at ATL
All departures from ATL| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,567 | 2.6%below the others | 3.6% |
| Delta Air Lines | 73,919 | 3.5%about level | 3.6% |
| Frontier Airlines | 4,928 | 5.0%above the others | 3.8% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from ATL and SFO, 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), SFO, 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 | 7,316 | 73.6% | 0.68% | -1 min | 7.2% |
| United Airlines | 1,819 | 74.7% | 0.77% | -3 min | 9.2% |
| Frontier Airlines | 941 | 60.9% | 2.23% | 5 min | 16.8% |
Delta Air Lines flew 72.6% of the 10,076 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 2.23% of its flights here against 0.68% for Delta Air Lines.
United Airlines arrived on time 13.8 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
DL656 (9:15 PM) arrived on time 74.9% of the time, 5.5 points more often than DL823 (3:35 PM) at 69.4%.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 11.5 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 77.4%
- Feb: 72.1%
- Mar: 77.5%
- Apr: 67.5%
- May: 59.5%
- Jun: 65.0%
- Jul: 65.0%
- Aug: 74.5%
- Sep: 80.7%
- Oct: 82.8%
- Nov: 77.6%
- Dec: 76.3%
May is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 23.3 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 67.9% from 314 flights
- August 2023: 77.0% from 308 flights
- September 2023: 82.8% from 292 flights
- October 2023: 88.4% from 302 flights
- November 2023: 89.2% from 269 flights
- December 2023: 86.3% from 249 flights
- January 2024: 81.1% from 204 flights
- February 2024: 69.2% from 173 flights
- March 2024: 71.5% from 241 flights
- April 2024: 55.3% from 257 flights
- May 2024: 51.0% from 264 flights
- June 2024: 74.1% from 276 flights
- July 2024: 65.2% from 308 flights
- August 2024: 77.8% from 280 flights
- September 2024: 78.3% from 287 flights
- October 2024: 88.1% from 303 flights
- November 2024: 67.0% from 264 flights
- December 2024: 72.0% from 268 flights
- January 2025: 77.6% from 198 flights
- February 2025: 72.0% from 186 flights
- March 2025: 73.5% from 277 flights
- April 2025: 76.4% from 283 flights
- May 2025: 68.8% from 293 flights
- June 2025: 65.7% from 309 flights
- July 2025: 71.1% from 319 flights
- August 2025: 69.1% from 305 flights
- September 2025: 80.9% from 277 flights
- October 2025: 72.1% from 306 flights
- November 2025: 76.3% from 287 flights
- December 2025: 71.3% from 269 flights
- January 2026: 73.7% from 217 flights
- February 2026: 74.4% from 220 flights
- March 2026: 86.6% from 282 flights
- April 2026: 69.9% from 283 flights
- May 2026: 58.0% from 285 flights
- June 2026: 56.0% from 304 flights
- July 2026: 55.7% from 317 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 69.9% against 74.0% in the 12 months before — declining by 4.1 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,076 ATL → SFO 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