Route reliability record
ATL→DFW
Atlanta to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 6,672
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,672 ATL to DFW flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,624 at 76.4% on time.
Best time to fly ATL to DFW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.6%, against 73.9% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 76.4% on time across 2,624 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,473 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.50%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
76.4% on time across 2,624 flights
These figures cover 6,672 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 76.4% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 59.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 934 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 78 | 78.4% | 49 min | 2.56% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,624 | 76.4% | 105 min | 2.59% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 237 | 76.2% | 92 min | 3.80% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,784 | 76.0% | 60 min | 2.55% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 15 | 64.3% | 276 min | 6.67% | D− |
| Frontier Airlines | 934 | 59.8% | 80 min | 1.71% | 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to DFW
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
- American 156707:1586.4% · 364 flights
- Delta 81822:5979.7% · 364 flights
- Delta 92113:5976.1% · 363 flights
- Delta 96108:5687.8% · 358 flights
- Delta 83907:2579.8% · 347 flights
- Delta 41411:2881.5% · 340 flights
- American 277005:3189.6% · 338 flights
- Frontier 309721:1550.2% · 337 flights
- Delta 43617:3566.8% · 312 flights
- Delta 37415:2569.1% · 296 flights
- Frontier 126914:3963.1% · 286 flights
- Delta 3119:3067.5% · 279 flights
- Frontier 302110:5467.0% · 268 flights
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta 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 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → DALAtlanta to Dallas | Delta Air Lines | 81.9% | 83.6% | 2.00% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 1115 10:00 |
| 2. ATL → DALAtlanta to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 75.3% | 76.6% | 1.67% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. ATL → DFWAtlanta to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 74.4% | 76.4% | 2.59% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2770 05:31 |
| 4. ATL → DFWAtlanta to Dallas-Fort Worth | Delta Air Lines | 74.1% | 76.0% | 2.55% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 961 08:56 |
| 5. ATL → DFWAtlanta to Dallas-Fort Worth | Frontier Airlines | 58.8% | 59.8% | 1.71% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 3021 10:54 |
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 21 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,169 flights82.9%
- 8am–11am712 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm1,308 flights81.0%
- 2pm–5pm1,384 flights69.8%
- 5pm–8pm887 flights65.3%
- 8pm–5am1,212 flights62.6%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.6% on time, against 83.8% 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 1,384 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL 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 ATL to DFW, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 83.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 62.6%, a wide gap of 21.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am82.9%
- 8–11am83.8%
- 11am–2pm81.0%
- 2–5pm69.8%
- 5–8pm65.3%
- 8pm–5am62.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 61.8% on time, 22 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. March was the busiest month here, with 587 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.5%, 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 138,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 138,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 138,189 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 83.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.50%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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.
The return leg runs 75.6% on time across 6,672 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 6,672 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 DFW 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. February runs 83.3% on time and July 61.8%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 6,473 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.1% of the 6,672 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 76.4% on time across 2,624 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 59.8%, 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 83.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.6%, 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 61.8% on time, compared with 83.3% in February. Across the year that is 22 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
- American Airlines on ATL to DFW76.4%
- Spirit Airlines on ATL to DFW76.2%
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to DFW76.0%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to DFW59.8%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record78.4%
- American Airlines on-time record76.4%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record76.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.
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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.