Route reliability record
ATL→DFW
Atlanta to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 6,698
- Period
- July 2025 to June 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,698 flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,633 at 77.2% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.2% on time across 2,633 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,480 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.76%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
77.2% on time across 2,633 flights
These figures cover 6,698 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 77.2% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 60.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 873 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 84 | 78.8% | 65 min | 2.38% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 302 | 78.1% | 86 min | 2.98% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,633 | 77.2% | 104 min | 3.15% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,791 | 75.4% | 57 min | 2.51% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 15 | 64.3% | 276 min | 6.67% | D− |
| Frontier Airlines | 873 | 60.4% | 79 min | 2.29% | D |
American Airlines cancels 3.1% 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.
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 21 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,248 flights83.5%
- 8am–11am708 flights83.6%
- 11am–2pm1,295 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm1,374 flights70.7%
- 5pm–8pm888 flights65.3%
- 8pm–5am1,185 flights62.4%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.4% on time, against 83.6% for the 8am–11am 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. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,374 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
July is the worst month at 65.4% on time, 18 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. July was the busiest month here, with 590 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.6%. 12 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 133,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%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 133,000 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 split is drawn from 132,551 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, 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 45,000 of the 133,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.76%, against 1.81% 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. 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 75.8% on time across 6,703 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 6,698 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 July 65.4%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 6,480 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
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 25.7% of the 6,698 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 77.2% on time across 2,633 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 60.4%, 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 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.4%, 21 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 July delays on ATL to DFW?
July is the weakest month at 65.4% on time, compared with 83.3% in February. Across the year that is 18 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
- Envoy Air on-time record78.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record78.1%
- American Airlines on-time record77.2%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.