Route profile
MCI→ATL
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Kansas City to Atlanta, 692 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 88% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,125 flights. How this is calculated
MCI → ATL arrives on time 87.0% of the time; the return trip, ATL → MCI, arrives on time 80.4% of the time, a 6.6-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
MCI → ATL spends 22.6 minutes on the ground on a 692-mile trip: 13.9 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at MCI and 8.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at ATL.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route has stayed remarkably steady year over year, a smaller swing than 100% of 5,368 comparable routes.
87.2% on time over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), against 87.2% in the 12 months before (2024-08 to 2025-07), virtually unchanged.
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 5,368 in the comparison.
Why MCI → ATL flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
MCI → ATL cancelled 109 of 10,125 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 93. The reason filed most often was the airline, 52.3% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 178 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 109 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.
57 cancellations, 52.3% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
51 cancellations, 46.8% 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, 0.9% 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.
109 coded cancellations were recorded on MCI → ATL; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
22 min late
against a median of 10 min early
Percentiles over 10,125 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at ATL after arriving from MCI.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 25% | High risk |
| 45 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 60 min | 7.7% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 4.2% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 2.7% | 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 1.08% of the time and diverts 0.22% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 9,994 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 22 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,125 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
MCI → ATL flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 92.0% of the time, against 80.8% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 11.2 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 92.9% on time from 945 flights
- 6 AM: 92.8% on time from 665 flights
- 7 AM: 92.3% on time from 1,214 flights
- 8 AM: 89.6% on time from 738 flights
- 9 AM: too few flights to score
- 10 AM: 90.9% on time from 1,105 flights
- 11 AM: 84.1% on time from 439 flights
- 12 PM: 85.7% on time from 791 flights
- 1 PM: 86.6% on time from 628 flights
- 2 PM: 82.9% on time from 383 flights
- 3 PM: 82.6% on time from 706 flights
- 4 PM: 81.7% on time from 497 flights
- 5 PM: 80.2% on time from 912 flights
- 6 PM: 82.0% on time from 878 flights
- 7 PM: 75.4% on time from 169 flights
- 8 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why MCI → 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 MCI → ATL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on MCI → ATL, at 40.7%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 92.0% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 80.8%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of MCI to ATL: 2.5 times the normal rate at MCI and 3.3 times at ATL. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: MCI 3.0% against 1.2%, ATL 3.4% against 1.0%. 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 | MCI | ATL |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 3.0% | 3.4% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.2% | 1.0% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 74.7% | 66.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 81.9% | 80.2% |
| Departures in bad weather | 16,876 | 105,854 |
Delta Air Lines (1.8% cancelled against 3.2% for the other carriers at MCI) and Southwest Airlines (3.0% cancelled against 3.5% for the other carriers at MCI) cancelled fewer departures from MCI 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 MCI
All departures from MCI| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,538 | 1.8%below the others | 3.2% |
| Southwest Airlines | 8,162 | 3.0%below the others | 3.5% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from MCI and ATL, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from MCI on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: MCI (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 | 7,834 | 88.7% | 1.16% | -11 min | 4.0% |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,101 | 83.2% | 0.71% | -5 min | 4.1% |
Delta Air Lines flew 78.9% of the 9,935 flights listed.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 5.5 percentage points more often than Southwest Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 6.2 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 83.0%
- Feb: 91.1%
- Mar: 86.0%
- Apr: 90.3%
- May: 83.0%
- Jun: 84.6%
- Jul: 78.9%
- Aug: 90.2%
- Sep: 90.7%
- Oct: 92.3%
- Nov: 91.8%
- Dec: 85.3%
July is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 13.4 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 81.0% from 314 flights
- August 2023: 82.9% from 302 flights
- September 2023: 91.0% from 288 flights
- October 2023: 91.8% from 292 flights
- November 2023: 94.1% from 270 flights
- December 2023: 89.1% from 275 flights
- January 2024: 77.7% from 248 flights
- February 2024: 94.0% from 235 flights
- March 2024: 89.5% from 267 flights
- April 2024: 94.4% from 270 flights
- May 2024: 81.0% from 286 flights
- June 2024: 89.0% from 299 flights
- July 2024: 72.1% from 314 flights
- August 2024: 94.2% from 279 flights
- September 2024: 88.8% from 267 flights
- October 2024: 94.4% from 288 flights
- November 2024: 91.3% from 252 flights
- December 2024: 85.3% from 251 flights
- January 2025: 84.7% from 241 flights
- February 2025: 89.3% from 233 flights
- March 2025: 86.7% from 264 flights
- April 2025: 87.4% from 249 flights
- May 2025: 84.0% from 275 flights
- June 2025: 78.5% from 292 flights
- July 2025: 82.2% from 302 flights
- August 2025: 93.7% from 303 flights
- September 2025: 92.1% from 291 flights
- October 2025: 90.8% from 307 flights
- November 2025: 89.9% from 273 flights
- December 2025: 81.3% from 263 flights
- January 2026: 87.2% from 232 flights
- February 2026: 90.0% from 222 flights
- March 2026: 81.3% from 255 flights
- April 2026: 88.8% from 265 flights
- May 2026: 84.0% from 285 flights
- June 2026: 86.2% from 283 flights
- July 2026: 80.1% from 293 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 87.2% against 87.2% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,125 MCI → 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