Carrier route record
AACID→DFW
American Airlines · Cedar Rapids to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 487
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 41%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CID to DFW sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 2.9 hours behind schedule. That rests on 487 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on CID to DFW runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 69 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 467 completed flights
Avg delay
175 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.90%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.5%
Every carrier on CID to DFW, 1,174 flights
These figures cover 487 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.4% 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 CID to DFW
American flew 487 of the 1,174 flights on CID to DFW, about 41% of it. Its 70.7% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 84.4% to American at 70.7%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 537 | 84.4% | 86 min | 1.86% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 150 | 74.3% | 125 min | 3.33% | C− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 487 | 70.7% | 175 min | 3.90% | C− |
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 34 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–8am171 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm231 flights67.3%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm85 flights51.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.2% on time, against 84.8% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 231 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CID to DFW through the year
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 57.6%. January is the strongest month at 83.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 26 points. March was the busiest month here, with 85 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.8%. 21 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. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 24,000 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%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Extreme weather
- 4%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 21% 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 3.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 24,009 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 10,000 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.90%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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. 15.4% 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.
The 685 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 62.1% on time across 487 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 487 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on CID to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.90% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.9 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. 467 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CID to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to CID, the return leg
- Envoy Air on CID to DFW84.4%
- PSA Airlines on CID to DFW74.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.