Route reliability record
BOS→DFW
Boston to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 3,740
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,562 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B−, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,740 flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,633 at 78.0% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,585 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.16%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
78.0% on time across 2,633 flights
These figures cover 3,740 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% 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 BOS to DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 78.0% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 70.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 861 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 231 | 78.4% | 77 min | 3.46% | B− |
| American Airlines | 2,633 | 78.0% | 87 min | 3.46% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 15 | 73.3% | 88 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 861 | 70.0% | 79 min | 2.21% | C |
American Airlines cancels 3.5% 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 36 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,007 flights86.1%
- 8am–11am870 flights83.4%
- 11am–2pm321 flights74.1%
- 2pm–5pm922 flights67.8%
- 5pm–8pm544 flights64.8%
- 8pm–5am76 flights50.0%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 50.0% on time, against 86.1% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,007 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
Delays peak in September, when the on-time rate falls to 71.0%. March is the strongest month at 84.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 13 points. July was the busiest month here, with 369 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 71.7%. 8 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 72,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 72,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 71,954 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 86.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.16%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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. 10.5% 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.
At 1,562 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.1% on time across 3,744 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,740 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 3.16% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 3,585 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to DFW questions
How often is BOS 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 23.9% of the 3,740 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BOS to DFW?
American Airlines leads at 78.0% on time across 2,633 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 70.0%, a gap of 8 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 BOS to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 50.0%, 36 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 September delays on BOS to DFW?
September is the weakest month at 71.0% on time, compared with 84.3% in March. Across the year that is 13 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 BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on-time record78.4%
- American Airlines on-time record78.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record73.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. BOS to DFW and DFW to BOS 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.