Route reliability record
BUR→DFW
Burbank to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 729
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,231 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B−, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 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 729 BUR to DFW flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 699 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.02%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
81.7% on time across 729 flights
These figures cover 729 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BUR to DFW
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 729 | 81.7% | 91 min | 3.02% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on BUR 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Burbank to Dallas-Fort Worth
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAX → DFWLos Angeles to Dallas-Fort Worth | Delta Air Lines | 82.1% | 83.6% | 1.81% | 8am–11am, Fri | DL 521 08:35 |
| 2. BUR → DFWBurbank to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 79.2% | 81.7% | 3.02% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2599 07:00 |
| 3. SNA → DFWSanta Ana to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 77.1% | 79.8% | 3.42% | 5am–8am, Thu (route) | AA 1382 06:45 |
| 4. ONT → DFWOntario to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 76.3% | 78.6% | 2.97% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1412 06:10 |
| 5. LAX → DFWLos Angeles to Dallas-Fort Worth | Frontier Airlines | 72.9% | 74.1% | 1.57% | 8am–11am, Thu | F9 4964 19:03 |
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 18 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–8am365 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm364 flights72.5%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 72.5% on time against 90.9% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 91.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 75.3%. 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 49% of the 12,000 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 12%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 11,659 reported delay minutes.
49% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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.
Cancellations run at 3.02%, against 1.81% 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
7.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,231 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.5% on time across 729 flights, 14 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 14 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 729 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
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 3.02% 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. 699 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BUR to DFW questions
How often is BUR to DFW delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.3% of the 729 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is BUR to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
81.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BUR to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 72.5%, 18 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 BUR to DFW?
November is the weakest month at 70.7% on time, compared with 91.5% in September. Across the year that is 21 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 BUR — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- BUR to LAS, a related route80.8%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- BUR to PHX, a related route83.6%
- American Airlines on-time record81.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BUR to DFW and DFW to BUR 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.