Fly Early: How Flight Delays Compound Through the Day (2025 to 2026)
A morning flight is turned into a late arrival a fraction as often as an evening one. The single best booking trick, proven by every operated U.S. flight.
Key findings
- The time of day you fly matters more than almost anything else you can control. Flights scheduled to leave around 5 AM arrived 15+ minutes late just 8.7% of the time; those leaving around 7 PM were late 33.1% of the time, roughly 3.8 times as often.
- A 6 AM departure ran 2.2 minutes early on average; by 7 PM the average flight was 18.6 minutes late.
- The pattern is almost perfectly steady: lateness rises hour by hour from dawn to the evening peak, then eases only as the last flights of the night go out.
- The reason is cascade. A plane that starts the day late stays late, and crews and aircraft fall further behind as the day stacks up, which is why the single best booking trick is simply to fly early.
There is one lever ordinary travelers control that beats loyalty status, seat choice, and airline reputation: the departure hour. This takes every operated U.S. flight from January 2025 through August 2026 and groups it by its scheduled departure hour, then measures how often each hour's flights arrived 15 or more minutes late. The curve rises relentlessly across the day because delays compound: one late inbound aircraft pushes back its next flight, and the whole system slips further behind as the hours pass. BTS is a near-census of domestic airline operations, so these are exact counts.
Best versus worst hour to fly
Lateness climbs through the day
| Scheduled departure hour | Share arriving 15+ min late |
|---|---|
| 5 AM | 8.7% |
| 6 AM | 10% |
| 7 AM | 12.7% |
| 8 AM | 14.6% |
| 9 AM | 16.2% |
| 10 AM | 17.9% |
| 11 AM | 19.9% |
| 12 PM | 21.9% |
| 1 PM | 23.6% |
| 2 PM | 26.6% |
| 3 PM | 28.5% |
| 4 PM | 30.5% |
| 5 PM | 31.7% |
| 6 PM | 32.5% |
| 7 PM | 33.1% |
| 8 PM | 32.9% |
| 9 PM | 30.1% |
| 10 PM | 29.1% |
| 11 PM | 20.6% |
By scheduled departure hour
| Departure hour | Flights | Avg arrival delay (min) | 15+ min late |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 AM | 321,138 | -2.8 | 8.7% |
| 6 AM | 791,644 | -2.2 | 10.0% |
| 7 AM | 846,508 | -0.6 | 12.7% |
| 8 AM | 795,156 | 0.5 | 14.6% |
| 9 AM | 652,177 | 1.8 | 16.2% |
| 10 AM | 721,981 | 3.5 | 17.9% |
| 11 AM | 715,281 | 5.4 | 19.9% |
| 12 PM | 685,862 | 7.7 | 21.9% |
| 1 PM | 684,980 | 9.4 | 23.6% |
| 2 PM | 657,271 | 12.7 | 26.6% |
| 3 PM | 661,298 | 14.4 | 28.5% |
| 4 PM | 658,450 | 16.3 | 30.5% |
| 5 PM | 723,625 | 18 | 31.7% |
| 6 PM | 679,477 | 18.4 | 32.5% |
| 7 PM | 622,571 | 18.6 | 33.1% |
| 8 PM | 509,561 | 17.7 | 32.9% |
| 9 PM | 382,084 | 15.9 | 30.1% |
| 10 PM | 256,093 | 14.6 | 29.1% |
| 11 PM | 95,992 | 5.3 | 20.6% |
Operated flights with a reported arrival time, grouped by the scheduled local departure hour. Exact counts; no sampling margins of error.
Data Sources & Methodology
The figures on this page are computed directly from the source data below. Narrative text accompanies the figures but never generates them.
Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance
- Vintage:
- 2025 to 2026
- Access:
- BigQuery
- Cadence:
- monthly
Flight-level on-time performance records for domestic flights operated by large U.S. air carriers, reported monthly to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Each row is one scheduled flight, with scheduled and actual departure and arrival times, delay minutes broken out by cause, taxi times, and cancellation and diversion flags. It is a near-census of U.S. domestic airline operations by the reporting carriers.
Air carriers that account for at least one percent of domestic scheduled passenger revenue must report on-time data for every domestic flight they operate. The monthly file is a frozen extract of those flight records for the reporting month.
The file is administrative data covering the reporting carriers’ domestic flights, not a probability sample. Statistics are exact counts and shares over the reported flights; there are no sampling weights and no sampling margins of error.
A flight is counted as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes late. For such flights, the delay minutes are attributed across five causes: air carrier, extreme weather, National Airspace System, security, and late-arriving aircraft, following BTS reporting rules.
Each flight carries origin and destination airport codes, which roll up to city, state, and metropolitan area. Scheduled and actual times are local to each airport.
- Coverage is limited to reporting carriers (large U.S. airlines) and their domestic flights; some regional, charter, and foreign operations fall outside the reporting thresholds.
- Delay-cause minutes are reported only for flights that arrive 15 or more minutes late and follow the BTS attribution rules, so cause breakdowns are not available for every late flight.
- Cancelled and diverted flights have no arrival-delay value and should be analyzed through their own flags rather than as delays.
- Times are local to each airport, so computing elapsed times across time zones requires care.
How these figures were produced
- Estimate type:
- Administrative near-census (exact counts)
- Weighting:
- None (not a weighted sample)
Suggested citation
U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 2025 to 2026 Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance. Analysis by Matt George, itsmattgeorge.com. Retrieved 2026-10-22.