Route reliability record
AUS→DAL
Austin to Dallas
- Flights
- 2,344
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 189 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,344 AUS to DAL flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly AUS to DAL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.2% of the time and Saturday flights 82.3%, against 77.3% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,303 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.3% on time across 2,344 flights
These figures cover 2,344 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to DAL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,344 | 77.3% | 57 min | 1.58% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Austin to Dallas
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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. AUS → DFWAustin to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 77.6% | 79.8% | 2.79% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. AUS → DALAustin to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 76.1% | 77.3% | 1.58% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. AUS → DFWAustin to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 72.6% | 75.1% | 3.27% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2563 05:00 |
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 35 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am345 flights96.2%
- 8am–11am397 flights93.5%
- 11am–2pm411 flights83.6%
- 2pm–5pm457 flights68.1%
- 5pm–8pm403 flights62.8%
- 8pm–5am331 flights61.1%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.1% on time, against 96.2% 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. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 457 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter AUS to DAL 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 AUS to DAL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 61.1%, a wide gap of 35.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.2%
- 8–11am93.5%
- 11am–2pm83.6%
- 2–5pm68.1%
- 5–8pm62.8%
- 8pm–5am61.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 67.5% on time, 20 points below January, the best at 87.8%. 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 207 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.8%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
57% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 to one. The split is drawn from 29,068 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 96.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.58% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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.
At 189 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 76.9% on time across 2,335 flights, within half a point 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 2,344 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 DAL 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. January runs 87.8% on time and June 67.5%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,303 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AUS to DAL questions
How often is AUS to DAL delayed?
Roughly 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 22.7% of the 2,344 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is AUS to DAL compared with the rest of the country?
77.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on AUS to DAL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.1%, 35 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 AUS to DAL?
June is the weakest month at 67.5% on time, compared with 87.8% in January. Across the year that is 20 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
- DAL to AUS — the return legseparate record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- AUS to DEN, a related route78.9%
- HOU to DAL, a related route81.6%
- AUS to DFW, a related route74.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. AUS to DAL and DAL to AUS 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.