Carrier performance at one airport
AA→DFW
American Airlines at Dallas/Fort Worth International
- Departures
- 164,554
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #9 of 9
American Airlines at Dallas-Fort Worth draws a C. About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 164,554 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 63,507 at 81.7% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, American Airlines runs 6 points behind the 71.8% weighted average across all carriers at DFW. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
66.0%
159,171 completed departures
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.99%
At DFW, this carrier only
Rank here
#9
Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at DFW
These figures cover 165,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Against the competition
Every carrier at DFW, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 81.7% of the time; American Airlines manages 66.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 164,554 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 63,507 | 81.7% | 54 min | 2.11% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 11,826 | 80.7% | 88 min | 2.47% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 23,575 | 76.5% | 80 min | 3.18% | B− |
| United Airlines | 9,723 | 75.9% | 87 min | 1.76% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 9,482 | 75.2% | 78 min | 2.20% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 22,776 | 73.2% | 91 min | 4.25% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 5,055 | 73.1% | 72 min | 2.85% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,359 | 70.7% | 58 min | 1.40% | C |
| American Airlines (this page) | 164,554 | 66.0% | 73 min | 2.99% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 4.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Where American Airlines flies from DFW
American Airlines operates 25 routes out of DFW with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DFW to PHX · Phoenix | 4,580 | 70.7% | 69 min | 2.49% | C |
| DFW to LAX · Los Angeles | 4,570 | 67.9% | 66 min | 2.28% | C |
| DFW to MIA · Miami | 4,300 | 68.7% | 71 min | 2.67% | C |
| DFW to LGA · New York | 4,289 | 64.1% | 69 min | 4.50% | D− |
| DFW to ORD · Chicago | 4,231 | 66.4% | 80 min | 3.71% | C− |
| DFW to LAS · Las Vegas | 4,007 | 66.5% | 69 min | 2.92% | C |
| DFW to MCO · Orlando | 3,610 | 60.9% | 68 min | 3.05% | D− |
| DFW to AUS · Austin | 3,605 | 65.2% | 72 min | 3.19% | C− |
| DFW to CLT · Charlotte | 3,601 | 73.5% | 69 min | 2.47% | C |
| DFW to SAT · San Antonio | 3,551 | 64.7% | 80 min | 3.44% | D− |
| DFW to DCA · Washington | 3,309 | 72.3% | 63 min | 3.45% | C− |
| DFW to SAN · San Diego | 3,219 | 64.9% | 65 min | 2.98% | D |
| DFW to BNA · Nashville | 3,146 | 65.6% | 73 min | 3.12% | C− |
| DFW to PHL · Philadelphia | 3,125 | 70.5% | 74 min | 3.74% | C− |
| DFW to SFO · San Francisco | 3,070 | 61.3% | 68 min | 2.54% | D |
| DFW to DEN · Denver | 2,967 | 62.3% | 72 min | 3.13% | D− |
| DFW to SNA · Santa Ana | 2,898 | 77.4% | 61 min | 3.00% | B |
| DFW to SEA · Seattle | 2,735 | 65.9% | 62 min | 2.82% | C |
| DFW to ATL · Atlanta | 2,670 | 71.6% | 69 min | 3.00% | C |
| DFW to BOS · Boston | 2,631 | 65.0% | 67 min | 3.15% | C− |
| DFW to TPA · Tampa | 2,559 | 66.6% | 68 min | 3.32% | C− |
| DFW to IAH · Houston | 2,454 | 60.0% | 81 min | 3.63% | D− |
| DFW to MSY · New Orleans | 2,328 | 66.5% | 75 min | 3.22% | C− |
| DFW to SLC · Salt Lake City | 2,226 | 61.0% | 67 min | 3.01% | D− |
| DFW to TUS · Tucson | 2,133 | 67.8% | 75 min | 3.23% | C− |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am15,340 flights83.4%
- 8am–11am33,092 flights77.2%
- 11am–2pm29,377 flights68.4%
- 2pm–5pm25,973 flights60.5%
- 5pm–8pm34,559 flights57.4%
- 8pm–5am26,213 flights55.3%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.3% on time, against 83.4% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
July is the worst month at 55.3% on time, 19 points below February, the best at 74.3%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 3.93 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
Cancellations run at 2.99%, against 1.80% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
164,554 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.99% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic.
Common questions
American Airlines at DFW
How often is American Airlines at DFW delayed?
About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 34.0% of the 164,554 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on American Airlines at DFW?
Envoy Air leads at 81.7% on time across 63,507 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 66.0%, a gap of 16 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on American Airlines at DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.3%, 28 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on American Airlines at DFW?
July is the weakest month at 55.3% on time, compared with 74.3% in February. Across the year that is 19 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) all carriers
- DFW to PHX route record70.7%
- DFW to LAX route record67.9%
- DFW to MIA route record68.7%
- DFW to LGA route record64.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.