Dallas-Fort Worth, TX · departure reliability
DFW
Dallas/Fort Worth International
- Departures
- 313,260
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Carriers
- 9
- US rank
- #4 by volume
Dallas-Fort Worth
Dallas/Fort Worth International sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 313,260 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 63,507 at 81.7% on time.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the nine carriers covered here at 81.7% on time across 63,507 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.8%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.82%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Envoy
81.7% on time here
These figures cover 313,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 DFW
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 164,554 | 66.0% | 73 min | 2.99% | C |
| Envoy Air | 63,507 | 81.7% | 54 min | 2.11% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 23,575 | 76.5% | 80 min | 3.18% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 22,776 | 73.2% | 91 min | 4.25% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 11,826 | 80.7% | 88 min | 2.47% | B |
| United Airlines | 9,723 | 75.9% | 87 min | 1.76% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 9,482 | 75.2% | 78 min | 2.20% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 5,055 | 73.1% | 72 min | 2.85% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,359 | 70.7% | 58 min | 1.40% | 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
Busiest routes out of DFW
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from DFW, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 71.8%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DFW to ORD · Chicago | 6,933 | 68.4% | 83 min | 3.01% | C− |
| DFW to LGA · New York | 6,856 | 66.7% | 74 min | 4.58% | C− |
| DFW to ATL · Atlanta | 6,739 | 75.1% | 72 min | 2.69% | B |
| DFW to LAX · Los Angeles | 6,270 | 71.9% | 67 min | 2.17% | C |
| DFW to DEN · Denver | 6,016 | 69.2% | 75 min | 2.26% | C |
| DFW to IAH · Houston | 5,774 | 69.8% | 79 min | 2.94% | C |
| DFW to SEA · Seattle | 5,238 | 69.4% | 63 min | 2.20% | C |
| DFW to LAS · Las Vegas | 5,232 | 69.4% | 70 min | 2.71% | C |
| DFW to PHX · Phoenix | 5,143 | 71.3% | 70 min | 2.41% | C |
| DFW to MCO · Orlando | 4,934 | 64.0% | 69 min | 2.88% | D |
| DFW to MIA · Miami | 4,843 | 69.5% | 73 min | 2.58% | C |
| DFW to AUS · Austin | 4,766 | 67.9% | 70 min | 3.25% | C− |
| DFW to SAT · San Antonio | 4,403 | 67.4% | 77 min | 3.32% | C− |
| DFW to SFO · San Francisco | 4,063 | 64.2% | 71 min | 2.24% | D |
| DFW to CLT · Charlotte | 3,884 | 74.0% | 69 min | 2.50% | C |
| DFW to SLC · Salt Lake City | 3,864 | 69.9% | 73 min | 2.36% | C |
| DFW to BOS · Boston | 3,784 | 67.1% | 76 min | 2.93% | C |
| DFW to SAN · San Diego | 3,553 | 64.3% | 68 min | 2.96% | D |
| DFW to DTW · Detroit | 3,550 | 76.2% | 76 min | 1.92% | B |
| DFW to XNA · Bentonville | 3,515 | 78.6% | 75 min | 2.48% | B |
| DFW to EWR · Newark | 3,515 | 70.9% | 87 min | 3.33% | C− |
| DFW to BNA · Nashville | 3,511 | 66.9% | 73 min | 3.08% | C− |
| DFW to PHL · Philadelphia | 3,379 | 70.0% | 77 min | 3.70% | C− |
| DFW to DCA · Washington | 3,309 | 72.3% | 63 min | 3.45% | C− |
| DFW to MSP · Minneapolis | 3,246 | 74.2% | 74 min | 2.25% | C |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave DFW
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am29,666 flights84.9%
- 8am–11am64,311 flights81.1%
- 11am–2pm54,243 flights74.0%
- 2pm–5pm54,581 flights67.7%
- 5pm–8pm59,649 flights63.2%
- 8pm–5am50,810 flights64.1%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.2% on time, against 84.9% 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
When DFW runs late
DFW's year swings by 17 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 61.9% on time, 17 points below February, the best at 78.9%. 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.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.0%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why DFW gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 6.23 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% 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 6.23 million 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 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 84.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.82%, against 1.80% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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. 10.8% 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.
313,260 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 DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.82% 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
DFW delay questions
How often is Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) delayed?
Roughly 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 28.2% of the 313,260 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 Dallas-Fort Worth (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 Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.2%, 22 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-Fort Worth (DFW)?
June is the weakest month at 61.9% on time, compared with 78.9% in February. Across the year that is 17 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
- DFW to ORD — Chicago68.4%
- DFW to LGA — New York66.7%
- DFW to ATL — Atlanta75.1%
- DFW to LAX — Los Angeles71.9%
- DFW to DEN — Denver69.2%
- DFW to IAH — Houston69.8%
- American Airlines on-time record66.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record81.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record76.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record73.2%
- 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.