Route reliability record
ATL→DFW
Atlanta to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 6,735
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 731 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,735 flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,669 at 76.9% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 76.9% on time across 2,669 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,517 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.72%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
American
76.9% on time across 2,669 flights
These figures cover 6,735 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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 airline is most reliable on ATL to DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 76.9% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 60.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 843 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 337 | 78.4% | 82 min | 2.97% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,669 | 76.9% | 105 min | 2.96% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,790 | 73.7% | 58 min | 2.44% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 81 | 72.2% | 67 min | 2.47% | C |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 15 | 64.3% | 276 min | 6.67% | D− |
| Frontier Airlines | 843 | 60.0% | 79 min | 2.73% | D |
The spread between American and Frontier is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 23 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,310 flights83.1%
- 8am–11am668 flights82.2%
- 11am–2pm1,282 flights82.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,405 flights69.3%
- 5pm–8pm897 flights64.2%
- 8pm–5am1,173 flights59.9%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.9% on time, against 83.1% 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 delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 57.5% on time, 26 points below February, the best at 83.3%. 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 79.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.5%. 11 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 139,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% 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 139,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 48,000 of the 139,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.72%, 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.6% 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.
The 731 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 75.1% on time across 6,739 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 6,735 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 83.3% on time and June 57.5%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else.
Common questions
ATL to DFW questions
How often is ATL to DFW delayed?
About 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 26.6% of the 6,735 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 ATL to DFW?
American Airlines leads at 76.9% on time across 2,669 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 60.0%, 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 ATL to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.9%, 23 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 ATL to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 57.5% on time, compared with 83.3% in February. Across the year that is 26 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 ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on-time record78.4%
- American Airlines on-time record76.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record73.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. ATL to DFW and DFW to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.