Route profile
MEM→ATL
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Memphis to Atlanta, 332 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 84% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,487 flights. How this is calculated
MEM → ATL arrives on time 87.4% of the time; the return trip, ATL → MEM, arrives on time 82.1% of the time, a 5.3-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
MEM → ATL spends 23.0 minutes on the ground on a 332-mile trip: 14.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at MEM and 8.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at ATL.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why MEM → ATL flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
MEM → ATL cancelled 141 of 10,487 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 74. The reason filed most often was the airline, 58.2% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 128 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 141 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.
82 cancellations, 58.2% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
57 cancellations, 40.4% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
2 cancellations, 1.4% 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.
141 coded cancellations were recorded on MEM → ATL; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
23 min late
against a median of 12 min early
Percentiles over 10,487 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at ATL after arriving from MEM.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 23% | High risk |
| 45 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 60 min | 8.2% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 4.9% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 3.3% | 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 1.34% of the time and diverts 0.13% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 10,332 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 23 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,487 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
MEM → ATL flights departing 9 AM–12 PM arrived on time 91.2% of the time, against 75.7% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 15.5 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 94.4% on time from 343 flights
- 6 AM: 90.3% on time from 1,112 flights
- 7 AM: 91.4% on time from 1,499 flights
- 8 AM: 90.3% on time from 775 flights
- 9 AM: 92.2% on time from 739 flights
- 10 AM: 92.5% on time from 702 flights
- 11 AM: 87.9% on time from 485 flights
- 12 PM: 90.7% on time from 769 flights
- 1 PM: 88.2% on time from 417 flights
- 2 PM: 85.5% on time from 780 flights
- 3 PM: 85.6% on time from 231 flights
- 4 PM: 80.9% on time from 737 flights
- 5 PM: 81.3% on time from 908 flights
- 6 PM: 82.4% on time from 366 flights
- 7 PM: 72.0% on time from 596 flights
- 8 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why MEM → 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 MEM → ATL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on MEM → ATL, at 36.3%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 9 AM–12 PM departures arrived on time 91.2% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 75.7%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of MEM to ATL: 2.6 times the normal rate at MEM and 3.3 times at ATL. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: MEM 3.9% against 1.5%, 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 | MEM | ATL |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 3.9% | 3.4% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.5% | 1.0% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 74.0% | 66.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 81.9% | 80.2% |
| Departures in bad weather | 5,899 | 105,854 |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from MEM and ATL, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad.
Weather source and limits. In full: MEM, 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 | 9,499 | 87.9% | 1.40% | -13 min | 5.0% |
| Southwest Airlines | 886 | 84.0% | 0.45% | -7 min | 3.5% |
Delta Air Lines flew 91.5% of the 10,385 flights listed.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 3.9 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
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 8.0 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 84.6%
- Feb: 91.3%
- Mar: 85.4%
- Apr: 89.4%
- May: 82.8%
- Jun: 85.3%
- Jul: 79.2%
- Aug: 88.9%
- Sep: 91.7%
- Oct: 93.2%
- Nov: 90.2%
- Dec: 90.8%
July is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 14.0 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 80.6% from 314 flights
- August 2023: 82.6% from 311 flights
- September 2023: 93.7% from 300 flights
- October 2023: 93.2% from 308 flights
- November 2023: 91.1% from 292 flights
- December 2023: 97.2% from 281 flights
- January 2024: 85.1% from 250 flights
- February 2024: 96.6% from 235 flights
- March 2024: 89.4% from 283 flights
- April 2024: 89.2% from 297 flights
- May 2024: 82.5% from 318 flights
- June 2024: 90.4% from 282 flights
- July 2024: 76.8% from 284 flights
- August 2024: 93.7% from 286 flights
- September 2024: 86.5% from 266 flights
- October 2024: 95.4% from 285 flights
- November 2024: 91.2% from 261 flights
- December 2024: 87.4% from 285 flights
- January 2025: 86.0% from 247 flights
- February 2025: 86.2% from 224 flights
- March 2025: 87.4% from 301 flights
- April 2025: 88.2% from 293 flights
- May 2025: 81.9% from 298 flights
- June 2025: 79.6% from 281 flights
- July 2025: 84.0% from 283 flights
- August 2025: 90.9% from 282 flights
- September 2025: 94.8% from 269 flights
- October 2025: 90.8% from 284 flights
- November 2025: 88.1% from 266 flights
- December 2025: 87.7% from 261 flights
- January 2026: 82.7% from 260 flights
- February 2026: 90.9% from 235 flights
- March 2026: 79.2% from 294 flights
- April 2026: 90.8% from 307 flights
- May 2026: 84.0% from 330 flights
- June 2026: 85.5% from 318 flights
- July 2026: 75.6% from 316 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 86.5% against 87.3% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,487 MEM → 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