Dallas, TX · departure reliability
DAL
Dallas Love Field
- Departures
- 70,551
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Carriers
- 2
- US rank
- #30 by volume
Dallas
Dallas Love Field sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 70,551 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,851 at 82.1% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so dallas love field runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.41%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
82.1% on time here
These figures cover 71,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of DAL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 82.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 72.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 68,700 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 68,700 | 72.9% | 56 min | 1.39% | C |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,851 | 82.1% | 90 min | 2.11% | B |
Delta leads Southwest by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Route by route
Busiest routes out of DAL
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from DAL, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 73.2%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DAL to HOU · Houston | 4,063 | 74.1% | 57 min | 1.82% | C |
| DAL to ATL · Atlanta | 3,398 | 79.2% | 74 min | 1.94% | B |
| DAL to DEN · Denver | 3,002 | 69.2% | 58 min | 1.40% | C |
| DAL to PHX · Phoenix | 2,880 | 75.3% | 55 min | 2.05% | B |
| DAL to LAS · Las Vegas | 2,865 | 74.9% | 54 min | 1.26% | C |
| DAL to SAT · San Antonio | 2,728 | 77.8% | 58 min | 1.14% | B |
| DAL to MCO · Orlando | 2,643 | 70.3% | 54 min | 1.66% | C |
| DAL to BNA · Nashville | 2,406 | 72.2% | 57 min | 1.45% | C |
| DAL to AUS · Austin | 2,333 | 77.0% | 59 min | 1.07% | B |
| DAL to MSY · New Orleans | 2,288 | 75.8% | 57 min | 1.09% | B |
| DAL to MDW · Chicago | 2,154 | 70.7% | 56 min | 1.90% | C |
| DAL to MCI · Kansas City | 2,041 | 75.7% | 54 min | 1.57% | B |
| DAL to STL · St. Louis | 1,922 | 76.8% | 61 min | 1.30% | B |
| DAL to BWI · Baltimore | 1,821 | 74.9% | 62 min | 1.92% | C |
| DAL to ELP · El Paso | 1,768 | 72.8% | 55 min | 1.13% | C |
| DAL to DCA · Washington | 1,735 | 68.0% | 61 min | 1.73% | C |
| DAL to ABQ · Albuquerque | 1,639 | 77.0% | 55 min | 1.46% | B |
| DAL to SAN · San Diego | 1,575 | 74.6% | 52 min | 1.27% | C |
| DAL to LBB · Lubbock | 1,528 | 78.1% | 54 min | 1.31% | B |
| DAL to LGA · New York | 1,514 | 63.2% | 66 min | 3.04% | D− |
| DAL to LAX · Los Angeles | 1,470 | 69.1% | 50 min | 1.16% | C |
| DAL to MAF · Midland | 1,350 | 78.9% | 60 min | 1.11% | B |
| DAL to TPA · Tampa | 1,304 | 69.8% | 55 min | 1.00% | C |
| DAL to AMA · Amarillo | 1,262 | 76.7% | 57 min | 1.11% | B |
| DAL to TUL · Tulsa | 1,048 | 78.0% | 56 min | 0.95% | B+ |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave DAL
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 36 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am8,722 flights91.5%
- 8am–11am13,763 flights86.7%
- 11am–2pm13,541 flights76.0%
- 2pm–5pm13,491 flights67.9%
- 5pm–8pm12,037 flights60.2%
- 8pm–5am8,997 flights55.6%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.6% on time, against 91.5% 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. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 13,763 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When DAL runs late
DAL's year swings by 26 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
June is the worst month at 56.5% on time, 26 points below January, the best at 82.8%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 6,349 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.5%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why DAL gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 1.06 million delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% 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 1.06 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 1,057,403 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.41% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
8.1% 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 about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
70,551 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.
What to do with this
Flying out of DAL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 82.8% on time and June 56.5%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 69,398 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DAL delay questions
How often is Dallas (DAL) delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.8% of the 70,551 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Dallas (DAL)?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.1% on time across 1,851 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 72.9%, a gap of 9 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 Dallas (DAL)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.6%, 36 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 Dallas (DAL)?
June is the weakest month at 56.5% on time, compared with 82.8% in January. Across the year that is 26 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
- DAL to HOU — Houston74.1%
- DAL to ATL — Atlanta79.2%
- DAL to DEN — Denver69.2%
- DAL to PHX — Phoenix75.3%
- DAL to LAS — Las Vegas74.9%
- DAL to SAT — San Antonio77.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.1%
- 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.