Route reliability record
AUS→DFW
Austin to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 4,767
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 190 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,767 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 704 at 75.5% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.4%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,592 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.63%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Envoy
75.5% on time across 704 flights
These figures cover 4,767 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.3% 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 AUS to DFW
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 704 | 75.5% | 81 min | 3.69% | B− |
| American Airlines | 3,605 | 74.1% | 109 min | 3.44% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 101 | 63.4% | 78 min | 7.92% | D− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 356 | 61.6% | 140 min | 3.93% | D− |
Envoy Air cancels 3.7% 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 27 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,001 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am827 flights79.4%
- 11am–2pm628 flights75.5%
- 2pm–5pm1,140 flights64.7%
- 5pm–8pm957 flights61.5%
- 8pm–5am214 flights68.4%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.5% on time, against 88.5% 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 17 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 81.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.4%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 133,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% 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 5 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 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 88.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.63%, against 1.80% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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. 12.3% 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.
At 190 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.9% on time across 4,766 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,767 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.63% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic.
Common questions
AUS to DFW questions
How often is AUS 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 26.9% of the 4,767 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to DFW?
Envoy Air leads at 75.5% on time across 704 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 74.1%, a gap of about a point. 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 AUS to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.5%, 27 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 November delays on AUS to DFW?
November is the weakest month at 64.8% on time, compared with 81.4% in May. Across the year that is 17 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 AUS — the return legseparate record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on-time record75.5%
- American Airlines on-time record74.1%
- PSA Airlines on-time record63.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. AUS to DFW and DFW to AUS 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.