Route reliability record
AEX→DFW
Alexandria to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,045
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 285 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,045 AEX to DFW flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly AEX to DFW: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Sunday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.4% of the time and Sunday flights 87.8%, against 82.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 53 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 999 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.21%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
84.1% on time across 721 flights
These figures cover 1,045 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on AEX to DFW
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 721 | 84.1% | 76 min | 3.74% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 324 | 80.1% | 90 min | 5.25% | B− |
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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am359 flights90.2%
- 8am–11am295 flights82.7%
- 11am–2pm32 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm37 flights91.4%
- 5pm–8pm322 flights73.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 91.4% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 73.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 359 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
August is the worst month at 72.9% on time, 16 points below January, the best at 88.7%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 79.3%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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.
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Extreme weather
- 23%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 25% 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 4.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,855 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.21%, against 1.81% 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
7.6% 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 last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 285 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 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 84.1% on time across 1,045 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,045 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 4.21% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 2pm–5pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 999 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AEX to DFW questions
How often is AEX to DFW 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 17.1% of the 1,045 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is AEX to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
82.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 AEX to DFW?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 91.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.8%, 18 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 August delays on AEX to DFW?
August is the weakest month at 72.9% on time, compared with 88.7% in January. Across the year that is 16 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 AEX — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on AEX to DFW84.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on AEX to DFW80.1%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- LGA to DFW, a related route70.8%
- ATL to DFW, a related route74.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record84.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. AEX to DFW and DFW to AEX 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.