Route profile
EWR→ATL
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Newark to Atlanta, 746 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 12% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 18,661 flights. How this is calculated
EWR → ATL arrives on time 75.6% of the time; the return trip, ATL → EWR, arrives on time 72.5% of the time, a 3.0-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
EWR → ATL spends 33.3 minutes on the ground on a 746-mile trip: 23.0 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at EWR and 10.3 minutes from touchdown to gate at ATL.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
The airline matters unusually much on this route, a wider carrier-to-carrier gap than 93% of 2,692 comparable routes.
Republic Airways arrived on time 85.0% of the time, against 65.3% for Frontier Airlines, flying the exact same route.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 2,692 in the comparison.
Why EWR → ATL flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
EWR → ATL cancelled 492 of 18,661 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 38. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 57.3% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 66 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 492 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
282 cancellations, 57.3% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
168 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.
42 cancellations, 8.5% 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.
492 coded cancellations were recorded on EWR → ATL; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
62 min late
against a median of 6 min early
EWR → ATL has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 6 min early, but the worst tenth are 68 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 18,661 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at ATL after arriving from EWR.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 39% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 24% | High risk |
| 60 min | 17% | High risk |
| 90 min | 10% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 6.9% | Some 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 2.64% of the time and diverts 0.32% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 18,110 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 62 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 18,661 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
EWR → ATL flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 83.9% of the time, against 61.2% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 22.7 percentage points.
By day and hour
On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (EWR).
Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 9.3 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 2.9 points.
| Hour | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
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On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time
- 50–59
- 60–69
- 70–79
- 80–89
- Fewer than 120 flights, not scored
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.
No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures before 6 AM and after 8 PM (2,200 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.
View as tableHide table
| Hour | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 AM–7 AM | 85.4% on time332 flights | 89.3% on time321 flights | 88.6% on time319 flights | 83.2% on time331 flights | 87.7% on time331 flights | 77.6% on time250 flights | 80.2% on time323 flights |
| 7 AM–8 AM | 83.3% on time190 flights | 89.0% on time183 flights | 84.3% on time181 flights | 88.6% on time189 flights | 86.4% on time189 flights | 118 flights, too few to score | 79.7% on time175 flights |
| 8 AM–9 AM | 82.4% on time231 flights | 86.4% on time224 flights | 83.1% on time222 flights | 84.1% on time226 flights | 81.1% on time226 flights | 83.0% on time173 flights | 81.2% on time193 flights |
| 9 AM–10 AM | 56 flights, too few to score | 69 flights, too few to score | 63 flights, too few to score | 67 flights, too few to score | 59 flights, too few to score | 86 flights, too few to score | 84 flights, too few to score |
| 10 AM–11 AM | 87.2% on time188 flights | 84.8% on time167 flights | 88.0% on time167 flights | 84.4% on time179 flights | 78.5% on time190 flights | 80.3% on time125 flights | 80.7% on time164 flights |
| 11 AM–12 PM | 118 flights, too few to score | 76.7% on time121 flights | 119 flights, too few to score | 116 flights, too few to score | 119 flights, too few to score | 77.1% on time147 flights | 107 flights, too few to score |
| 12 PM–1 PM | 85.5% on time183 flights | 81.5% on time182 flights | 88.3% on time181 flights | 81.4% on time177 flights | 80.0% on time179 flights | 80.9% on time138 flights | 78.4% on time191 flights |
| 1 PM–2 PM | 80.7% on time206 flights | 76.8% on time185 flights | 86.1% on time187 flights | 78.7% on time208 flights | 75.1% on time210 flights | 77.5% on time195 flights | 70.1% on time193 flights |
| 2 PM–3 PM | 81.8% on time147 flights | 86.8% on time130 flights | 83.1% on time145 flights | 73.6% on time145 flights | 73.9% on time136 flights | 87.7% on time131 flights | 79.6% on time146 flights |
| 3 PM–4 PM | 67.0% on time190 flights | 77.6% on time201 flights | 74.4% on time208 flights | 66.7% on time195 flights | 70.1% on time196 flights | 76.4% on time145 flights | 65.7% on time190 flights |
| 4 PM–5 PM | 63.2% on time165 flights | 79.3% on time140 flights | 70.8% on time146 flights | 70.6% on time166 flights | 64.9% on time160 flights | 105 flights, too few to score | 70.3% on time157 flights |
| 5 PM–6 PM | 62.6% on time217 flights | 64.4% on time193 flights | 62.2% on time184 flights | 55.9% on time208 flights | 60.7% on time210 flights | 63.0% on time144 flights | 58.3% on time208 flights |
| 6 PM–7 PM | 86 flights, too few to score | 115 flights, too few to score | 102 flights, too few to score | 87 flights, too few to score | 88 flights, too few to score | 108 flights, too few to score | 98 flights, too few to score |
| 7 PM–8 PM | 67.0% on time186 flights | 109 flights, too few to score | 68.9% on time124 flights | 62.2% on time178 flights | 54.9% on time192 flights | 62 flights, too few to score | 53.5% on time165 flights |
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 80.0% on time from 629 flights
- 6 AM: 84.8% on time from 2,207 flights
- 7 AM: 85.2% on time from 1,225 flights
- 8 AM: 83.1% on time from 1,495 flights
- 9 AM: 82.2% on time from 484 flights
- 10 AM: 83.5% on time from 1,180 flights
- 11 AM: 76.9% on time from 847 flights
- 12 PM: 82.3% on time from 1,231 flights
- 1 PM: 77.9% on time from 1,384 flights
- 2 PM: 80.8% on time from 980 flights
- 3 PM: 71.0% on time from 1,325 flights
- 4 PM: 69.6% on time from 1,039 flights
- 5 PM: 60.9% on time from 1,364 flights
- 6 PM: 66.8% on time from 684 flights
- 7 PM: 61.3% on time from 1,016 flights
- 8 PM: 55.8% on time from 535 flights
- 9 PM: 63.6% on time from 354 flights
- 10 PM: 60.2% on time from 677 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why EWR → ATL runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
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 EWR → ATL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on EWR → ATL, at 41.8%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 83.9% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 61.2%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of EWR to ATL: 3.3 times the normal rate at EWR and 3.3 times at ATL. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: EWR 6.9% against 2.1%, ATL 3.4% against 1.0%. Flights that did leave EWR in bad weather arrived on time 65.8% of the time, against 80.0% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | EWR | ATL |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 6.9% | 3.4% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 2.1% | 1.0% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 65.8% | 66.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.0% | 80.2% |
| Departures in bad weather | 51,613 | 105,854 |
Of the carriers on this route, United Airlines (5.3% cancelled against 8.9% for the other carriers at EWR) cancelled the fewest departures from EWR in bad weather and Republic Airways (11.8% cancelled against 6.1% for the other carriers at EWR) the most. One more carrier flies this route but has too few bad-weather departures from EWR to compare.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at EWR
All departures from EWR| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 28,226 | 5.3%below the others | 8.9% |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,694 | 5.4%below the others | 7.0% |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,882 | 8.7%above the others | 6.4% |
| Republic Airways | 9,298 | 11.8%above the others | 6.1% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from EWR and ATL, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from EWR on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: EWR (airlines), ATL, 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 | 9,335 | 76.9% | 2.23% | -5 min | 9.8% |
| United Airlines | 6,250 | 76.1% | 2.59% | -8 min | 10.3% |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,639 | 70.1% | 4.09% | -6 min | 12.5% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,049 | 65.3% | 4.10% | -2 min | 15.5% |
| Republic Airways | 388 | 85.0% | 3.09% | -14 min | 3.2% |
Delta Air Lines flew 50.0% of the 18,661 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 4.10% of its flights here against 2.23% for Delta Air Lines.
Republic Airways arrived on time 19.7 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Other ways to fly New York to Atlanta
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
JFK → ATL is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 76.0% on time, against 75.6% for EWR → ATL.
Flying to ATL from the New York area? Compare EWR, LGA, JFK for ATL, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
DL1673 (7:00 AM) arrived on time 84.8% of the time, 20.4 points more often than F94601 (5:59 AM) at 64.4%.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 9.2 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 75.9%
- Feb: 81.9%
- Mar: 79.9%
- Apr: 78.3%
- May: 68.5%
- Jun: 73.9%
- Jul: 62.6%
- Aug: 76.0%
- Sep: 80.2%
- Oct: 79.1%
- Nov: 78.2%
- Dec: 76.1%
July is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 19.3 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 64.1% from 487 flights
- August 2023: 78.2% from 467 flights
- September 2023: 76.2% from 505 flights
- October 2023: 89.2% from 491 flights
- November 2023: 89.7% from 456 flights
- December 2023: 88.5% from 460 flights
- January 2024: 78.1% from 460 flights
- February 2024: 88.7% from 445 flights
- March 2024: 83.4% from 465 flights
- April 2024: 80.0% from 503 flights
- May 2024: 75.9% from 548 flights
- June 2024: 73.6% from 505 flights
- July 2024: 57.2% from 518 flights
- August 2024: 70.8% from 519 flights
- September 2024: 80.6% from 511 flights
- October 2024: 77.8% from 528 flights
- November 2024: 73.7% from 511 flights
- December 2024: 70.6% from 538 flights
- January 2025: 71.3% from 513 flights
- February 2025: 71.3% from 464 flights
- March 2025: 76.7% from 523 flights
- April 2025: 67.1% from 481 flights
- May 2025: 45.0% from 468 flights
- June 2025: 70.4% from 485 flights
- July 2025: 64.3% from 539 flights
- August 2025: 78.8% from 537 flights
- September 2025: 83.8% from 520 flights
- October 2025: 71.1% from 536 flights
- November 2025: 72.2% from 516 flights
- December 2025: 70.8% from 524 flights
- January 2026: 78.5% from 513 flights
- February 2026: 86.0% from 487 flights
- March 2026: 80.0% from 565 flights
- April 2026: 86.7% from 527 flights
- May 2026: 81.6% from 519 flights
- June 2026: 77.6% from 507 flights
- July 2026: 64.8% from 520 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 77.6% against 70.2% in the 12 months before — improving by 7.4 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 18,661 EWR → ATL 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