Carrier route record
DLATL→DFW
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,791
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 42%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on ATL to DFW sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,791 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 2,633 at 77.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on ATL to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,711 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.51%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.3%
Every carrier on ATL to DFW, 6,698 flights
These figures cover 2,791 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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
Delta against every carrier on ATL to DFW
Delta flew 2,791 of the 6,698 flights on ATL to DFW, about 42% of it. Its 75.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 78.8% to Frontier at 60.4%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 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.
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on ATL to DFW
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am350 flights78.2%
- 8am–11am366 flights87.7%
- 11am–2pm501 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm560 flights71.3%
- 5pm–8pm366 flights66.1%
- 8pm–5am648 flights71.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.7% of the time, against 66.1% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 648 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on ATL to DFW through the year
July is the worst month at 62.1% on time, 22 points below February, the best at 84.4%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 248 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 80.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.7%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
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 38,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 33%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, 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 15,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 38,231 reported delay minutes.
33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 13,000 minutes out of 38,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.51%, against 1.81% 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 costs
7.9% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.8% on time across 2,792 flights, 7 points above 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,791 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 Delta on ATL to DFW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 84.4% on time and July 62.1%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,711 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to DFW, every carrier
- Delta on DFW to ATL, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on ATL to DFW78.1%
- American Airlines on ATL to DFW77.2%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to DFW60.4%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.