Route reliability record
ACT→DFW
Waco to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,072
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 90 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five arrive on time, worth an A− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,072 ACT to DFW flights, of which Envoy Air flew 615 at 85.9% on time.
Best time to fly ACT to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 92.5%, against 85.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 84 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,028 completed flights
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.82%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
85.9% on time across 615 flights
These figures cover 1,072 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 ACT to DFW
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 615 | 85.9% | 81 min | 2.93% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 457 | 85.5% | 112 min | 5.03% | A− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 5.0% 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Waco to Dallas-Fort Worth
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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ACT → DFWWaco to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 83.4% | 85.9% | 2.93% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 2. ACT → DFWWaco to Dallas-Fort Worth | SkyWest Airlines | 81.2% | 85.5% | 5.03% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. GRK → DFWKilleen to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 80.2% | 83.4% | 3.80% | 8am–11am, Fri | MQ 3919 05:00 |
| 4. GRK → DFWKilleen to Dallas-Fort Worth | SkyWest Airlines | 74.7% | 78.9% | 5.36% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am361 flights93.1%
- 8am–11am220 flights85.4%
- 11am–2pm138 flights90.8%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm353 flights76.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.1% of the time, against 76.0% for the evening window. That is 17 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 361 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ACT to DFW 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 ACT to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 76.0%, a wide gap of 17.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.1%
- 8–11am85.4%
- 11am–2pm90.8%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm76.0%
- 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 14 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 94.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 92.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 81.7%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 14,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 16% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,876 reported delay minutes.
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 to one.
Cancellations run at 3.82%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 90 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.0% on time across 1,072 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,072 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DFW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.82% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,028 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ACT to DFW questions
How often is ACT to DFW delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.3% of the 1,072 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ACT to DFW?
Envoy Air leads at 85.9% on time across 615 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 85.5%, a gap of half a point. 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 ACT to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.0%, 17 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 November delays on ACT to DFW?
November is the weakest month at 80.0% on time, compared with 94.1% in April. Across the year that is 14 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 ACT — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ACT to DFW85.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on ACT to DFW85.5%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- ATL to DFW, a related route73.9%
- LGA to DFW, a related route70.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record85.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ACT to DFW and DFW to ACT 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.