Carrier performance at one airport
DL→DFW
Delta Air Lines at Dallas/Fort Worth International
- Departures
- 11,747
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 9
- Rank here
- #2 of 9
Delta Air Lines at Dallas-Fort Worth lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 11,747 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 63,918 at 82.1% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Delta Air Lines runs 9 points ahead of the 72.0% 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
80.9%
11,420 completed departures
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.49%
At DFW, this carrier only
Rank here
#2
Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at DFW
These figures cover 12,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Against the competition
Every carrier at DFW, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 82.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 65.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 164,581 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 63,918 | 82.1% | 57 min | 2.33% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 11,747 | 80.9% | 92 min | 2.49% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 23,089 | 77.2% | 80 min | 3.36% | B− |
| United Airlines | 9,850 | 75.9% | 88 min | 1.72% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 9,912 | 74.7% | 80 min | 2.14% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 22,542 | 74.1% | 91 min | 4.37% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 4,404 | 73.6% | 73 min | 3.02% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,389 | 72.3% | 59 min | 1.38% | C |
| American Airlines | 164,581 | 65.9% | 74 min | 3.16% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 4.4% 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 Delta Air Lines flies from DFW
Delta Air Lines operates 9 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 ATL · Atlanta | 2,792 | 82.8% | 82 min | 2.54% | B |
| DFW to LGA · New York | 1,955 | 73.4% | 96 min | 4.55% | C− |
| DFW to SLC · Salt Lake City | 1,459 | 81.5% | 92 min | 1.51% | B |
| DFW to MSP · Minneapolis | 1,411 | 81.6% | 87 min | 1.42% | B |
| DFW to DTW · Detroit | 1,404 | 83.3% | 100 min | 1.57% | B |
| DFW to BOS · Boston | 861 | 77.4% | 100 min | 2.44% | B |
| DFW to LAX · Los Angeles | 718 | 87.9% | 106 min | 1.95% | A |
| DFW to SEA · Seattle | 712 | 78.9% | 88 min | 1.69% | B |
| DFW to JFK · New York | 434 | 88.8% | 75 min | 4.84% | A− |
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 18 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am3,152 flights90.2%
- 8am–11am1,369 flights84.5%
- 11am–2pm2,588 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm2,261 flights76.5%
- 5pm–8pm2,192 flights71.8%
- 8pm–5am185 flights74.7%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.2% of the time, against 71.8% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 3,152 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
June is the worst month at 76.4% on time, 12 points below February, the best at 88.0%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 1,056 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 39%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% 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 199,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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. The split is drawn from 199,429 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.49% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
7.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
The sample behind these figures is 11,747 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Put together: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 71.8% on time against 90.2% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 18 points is the largest single thing you control here. Envoy Air is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 11,420 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Delta Air Lines at DFW
How often is Delta Air Lines at DFW delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.1% of the 11,747 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Delta Air Lines at DFW?
Envoy Air leads at 82.1% on time across 63,918 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 65.9%, 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 Delta Air Lines at DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.8%, 18 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 June delays on Delta Air Lines at DFW?
June is the weakest month at 76.4% on time, compared with 88.0% in February. Across the year that is 12 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
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) all carriers
- DFW to ATL route record82.8%
- DFW to LGA route record73.4%
- DFW to SLC route record81.5%
- DFW to MSP route record81.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.