Carrier route record
AABOS→DFW
American Airlines · Boston to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,633
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 70%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on BOS to DFW carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,633 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on BOS 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
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,516 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.1%
Every carrier on BOS to DFW, 3,740 flights
These figures cover 2,633 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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
American against every carrier on BOS to DFW
American flew 2,633 of the 3,740 flights on BOS to DFW, most of the route. Its 78.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 78.4% to Delta at 70.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 231 | 78.4% | 77 min | 3.46% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 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 |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on BOS to DFW
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am671 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am663 flights84.1%
- 11am–2pm272 flights74.0%
- 2pm–5pm717 flights69.6%
- 5pm–8pm310 flights61.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.8% on time, against 89.9% 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 717 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on BOS to DFW through the year
June is the worst month at 71.0% on time, 15 points below March, the best at 85.5%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 243 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Saturday the weakest at 73.4%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 48,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% 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 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 48,281 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 89.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.46%, 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.3% 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 64.7% on time across 2,639 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,633 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 American on BOS to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.46% 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. 2,516 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BOS to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to BOS, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on BOS to DFW78.4%
- Delta Air Lines on BOS to DFW70.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.