Route reliability record
ABQ→DAL
Albuquerque to Dallas
- Flights
- 1,625
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 580 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That rests on 1,625 ABQ to DAL flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly ABQ to DAL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.1%, against 82.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 51 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,592 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
82.4% on time across 1,625 flights
These figures cover 1,625 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ABQ to DAL
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,625 | 82.4% | 54 min | 1.48% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Albuquerque to Dallas
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ABQ → DALAlbuquerque to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 81.2% | 82.4% | 1.48% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. ABQ → DFWAlbuquerque to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 79.7% | 80.8% | 1.40% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. ABQ → DFWAlbuquerque to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 79.0% | 81.2% | 2.74% | 5am–8am, Fri | AA 9 16:48 |
| 4. SAF → DFWSanta Fe to Dallas-Fort Worth | SkyWest Airlines | 77.4% | 79.5% | 2.61% | 8am–11am, Wed | OO 6403 06:15 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am406 flights95.5%
- 8am–11am245 flights91.6%
- 11am–2pm325 flights83.9%
- 2pm–5pm334 flights72.7%
- 5pm–8pm291 flights68.1%
- 8pm–5am24 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.5% of the time, against 68.1% for the evening window. That is 27 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 406 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ABQ to DAL 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 ABQ to DAL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.1%, a wide gap of 27.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.5%
- 8–11am91.6%
- 11am–2pm83.9%
- 2–5pm72.7%
- 5–8pm68.1%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 67.7% on time, 23 points below January, the best at 90.2%. 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 162 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.9%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 16%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 15,023 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 95.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.48% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 580 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.7% on time across 1,623 flights, 6 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,625 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DAL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 90.2% on time and June 67.7%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,592 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ABQ to DAL questions
How often is ABQ to DAL delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.6% of the 1,625 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is ABQ to DAL compared with the rest of the country?
82.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ABQ to DAL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.1%, 27 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 ABQ to DAL?
June is the weakest month at 67.7% on time, compared with 90.2% in January. Across the year that is 23 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 ABQ — the return legseparate record
- Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) delay statistics
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- ABQ to PHX, a related route81.8%
- HOU to DAL, a related route81.6%
- ABQ to DEN, a related route82.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record82.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ABQ to DAL and DAL to ABQ are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.