Dallas-Fort Worth, TX · departure reliability
DFW
Dallas/Fort Worth International
- Departures
- 312,771
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Carriers
- 10
- 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, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 312,771 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 64,201 at 83.6% on time.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the ten carriers covered here at 83.6% on time across 64,201 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.8%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
83.6% on time here
These figures cover 313,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 83.6% of the time; American Airlines manages 66.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 164,984 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 164,984 | 66.7% | 73 min | 2.68% | C |
| Envoy Air | 64,201 | 83.6% | 57 min | 2.02% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 22,429 | 77.7% | 82 min | 2.89% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 22,290 | 74.7% | 89 min | 4.25% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 11,632 | 81.4% | 88 min | 2.59% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 10,947 | 74.1% | 81 min | 2.10% | C |
| United Airlines | 10,062 | 76.6% | 86 min | 1.62% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,241 | 74.0% | 74 min | 3.95% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,459 | 76.1% | 56 min | 1.10% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 480 | 69.3% | 99 min | 3.12% | 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 72.8%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DFW to ORD · Chicago | 7,115 | 68.8% | 82 min | 2.75% | C |
| DFW to ATL · Atlanta | 6,672 | 75.6% | 74 min | 2.52% | B |
| DFW to LGA · New York | 6,650 | 66.1% | 76 min | 5.07% | C− |
| DFW to LAX · Los Angeles | 6,184 | 74.0% | 67 min | 2.15% | C |
| DFW to DEN · Denver | 6,059 | 70.5% | 75 min | 1.93% | C |
| DFW to IAH · Houston | 5,800 | 70.7% | 79 min | 2.43% | C |
| DFW to PHX · Phoenix | 5,258 | 73.0% | 69 min | 2.36% | C |
| DFW to SEA · Seattle | 5,227 | 71.1% | 62 min | 1.78% | C |
| DFW to LAS · Las Vegas | 5,138 | 68.8% | 70 min | 2.41% | C |
| DFW to MCO · Orlando | 4,892 | 64.5% | 71 min | 2.58% | D |
| DFW to MIA · Miami | 4,804 | 69.3% | 74 min | 2.37% | C |
| DFW to AUS · Austin | 4,730 | 68.1% | 71 min | 3.07% | C− |
| DFW to SAT · San Antonio | 4,375 | 67.8% | 79 min | 2.83% | C |
| DFW to SFO · San Francisco | 4,264 | 60.8% | 68 min | 2.18% | D |
| DFW to CLT · Charlotte | 3,904 | 74.3% | 65 min | 2.31% | C |
| DFW to SLC · Salt Lake City | 3,872 | 71.1% | 70 min | 2.17% | C |
| DFW to SAN · San Diego | 3,738 | 63.3% | 67 min | 2.27% | D |
| DFW to BOS · Boston | 3,695 | 67.2% | 73 min | 3.11% | C− |
| DFW to EWR · Newark | 3,633 | 72.9% | 82 min | 3.39% | C− |
| DFW to BNA · Nashville | 3,544 | 67.1% | 70 min | 2.74% | C |
| DFW to XNA · Bentonville | 3,541 | 77.9% | 71 min | 2.34% | B |
| DFW to DTW · Detroit | 3,482 | 76.3% | 75 min | 1.92% | B |
| DFW to PHL · Philadelphia | 3,477 | 71.4% | 76 min | 3.34% | C− |
| DFW to MSP · Minneapolis | 3,311 | 74.0% | 73 min | 2.08% | C |
| DFW to DCA · Washington | 3,303 | 73.6% | 61 min | 2.76% | 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 20 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am29,545 flights85.2%
- 8am–11am64,323 flights81.9%
- 11am–2pm54,823 flights74.4%
- 2pm–5pm53,965 flights69.1%
- 5pm–8pm58,318 flights65.1%
- 8pm–5am51,797 flights65.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.2% of the time, against 65.1% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 64,323 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW departures by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On departures from Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.1%, a wide gap of 20.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.2%
- 8–11am81.9%
- 11am–2pm74.4%
- 2–5pm69.1%
- 5–8pm65.1%
- 8pm–5am65.3%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When DFW runs late
DFW's year swings by 15 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 63.6% on time, 15 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. July was the busiest month here, with 28,623 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.6%, a spread of 10 points.
DFW month by month
From Europe
Transatlantic routes into DFW
10 European airports send scheduled passenger flights to DFW, 10,046 flights a year in both directions by the DOT's international count. The DOT keeps no delay record for international flights; the UK routes carry the CAA's departure punctuality, and every route sets its departure airport's EUROCONTROL figures beside DFW's own record above.
- LHR to DFW · London3,486 flights
- MAD to DFW · Madrid1,282 flights
- CDG to DFW · Paris1,260 flights
- FRA to DFW · Frankfurt1,228 flights
- HEL to DFW · Helsinki662 flights
- BCN to DFW · Barcelona576 flights
- FCO to DFW · Rome567 flights
- DUB to DFW · Dublin513 flights
- AMS to DFW · Amsterdam268 flights
- VCE to DFW · Venice204 flights
Delay causes
Why DFW gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 6.05 million delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6.05 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 6,045,386 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 85.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.61%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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.
10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
312,771 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 78.9% on time and June 63.6%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 303,638 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW delay questions
How often is Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.2% of the 312,771 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 83.6% on time across 64,201 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 66.7%, a gap of 17 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 85.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.1%, 20 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 63.6% on time, compared with 78.9% in February. Across the year that is 15 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 — Chicago68.8%
- DFW to ATL — Atlanta75.6%
- DFW to LGA — New York66.1%
- DFW to LAX — Los Angeles74.0%
- DFW to DEN — Denver70.5%
- DFW to IAH — Houston70.7%
- American Airlines on-time record66.7%
- Envoy Air on-time record83.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record74.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Dallas and Houston airports, plus Austin and San Antonio
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.