Route reliability record
CMI→DFW
Champaign to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 723
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 692 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 723 CMI to DFW flights, with a median arrival 18 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 85 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 705 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.07%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
86.1% on time across 723 flights
These figures cover 723 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 18 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 CMI 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 723 | 86.1% | 101 min | 2.07% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on CMI 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 Champaign 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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BMI → DFWBloomington to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 87.4% | 88.9% | 1.65% | 5am–8am, Tue | MQ 3370 06:20 |
| 2. CMI → DFWChampaign to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 84.3% | 86.1% | 2.07% | 5am–8am, Fri | MQ 4073 07:00 |
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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 723 flights.
- 5am–8am359 flights88.9%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm364 flights83.3%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 88.9% on time for the 5am–8am window against 83.3% for 2pm–5pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
June is the worst month at 79.2% on time, 17 points below February, the best at 96.4%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 89.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 82.5%. 7 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 9,918 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
37% 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 9,918 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. The split is drawn from 9,918 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 88.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.07% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 692 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 runs 84.1% on time across 723 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 723 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: treat all of this as provisional. 723 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 86.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 705 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CMI to DFW questions
How often is CMI to DFW delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.9% of the 723 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is CMI to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
86.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CMI to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 83.3%, 6 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 June delays on CMI to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 79.2% on time, compared with 96.4% in February. Across the year that is 17 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 CMI — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- CMI to ORD, a related route75.0%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- LGA to DFW, a related route70.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record86.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. CMI to DFW and DFW to CMI 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.