Route reliability record
BOS→DFW
Boston to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 3,692
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,562 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 3,692 BOS to DFW flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,653 at 78.8% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.5%, against 77.4% 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
77.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,551 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.09%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
78.8% on time across 2,653 flights
These figures cover 3,692 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 BOS to DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 78.8% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 72.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 868 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 169 | 79.5% | 69 min | 4.14% | B− |
| American Airlines | 2,653 | 78.8% | 94 min | 3.32% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 868 | 72.7% | 77 min | 2.19% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 0.0% | 62 min | 0.00% | F+ |
American Airlines cancels 3.3% 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
Flights on BOS 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Boston to Dallas-Fort Worth
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BOS → DFWBoston to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 76.2% | 78.8% | 3.32% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2527 06:00 |
| 2. BOS → DFWBoston to Dallas-Fort Worth | Delta Air Lines | 71.1% | 72.7% | 2.19% | 11am–2pm, Tue | DL 760 07:15 |
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 36 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,035 flights86.4%
- 8am–11am795 flights83.5%
- 11am–2pm376 flights76.0%
- 2pm–5pm873 flights69.9%
- 5pm–8pm542 flights67.1%
- 8pm–5am71 flights50.7%
Scale runs 40% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 50.7% on time, against 86.4% 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 1,035 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS 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 BOS to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 50.7%, a wide gap of 35.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.4%
- 8–11am83.5%
- 11am–2pm76.0%
- 2–5pm69.9%
- 5–8pm67.1%
- 8pm–5am50.7%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%.
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. October was the busiest month here, with 352 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 70.1%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 71,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 2%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 71,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 70,956 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 24,000 of the 71,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.09%, against 1.89% 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
10.0% 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.
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 67.2% on time across 3,695 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,692 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.09% 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. 3,551 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to DFW questions
How often is BOS to DFW 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 22.6% of the 3,692 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 78.8% on time across 2,653 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 72.7%, a gap of 6 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 86.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 50.7%, 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 BOS to DFW79.5%
- American Airlines on BOS to DFW78.8%
- Delta Air Lines on BOS to DFW72.7%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record79.5%
- American Airlines on-time record78.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record72.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.
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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.