Route reliability record
COS→DFW
Colorado Springs to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,934
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 592 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 2.1 hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,934 COS to DFW flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 609 at 80.3% on time.
Best time to fly COS to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.8% of the time and Thursday flights 80.3%, against 77.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,870 completed flights
Avg delay
125 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
80.3% on time across 609 flights
These figures cover 1,934 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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
Which airline is most reliable on COS to DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 80.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 74.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,071 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 254 | 86.7% | 69 min | 1.57% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 609 | 80.3% | 153 min | 2.79% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,071 | 74.1% | 120 min | 3.36% | C− |
American Airlines cancels 3.4% 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 COS 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 Colorado Springs 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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. COS → DALColorado Springs to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 81.0% | 81.7% | 0.85% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. COS → DFWColorado Springs to Dallas-Fort Worth | SkyWest Airlines | 78.1% | 80.3% | 2.79% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | OO 6390 08:25 |
| 3. COS → DFWColorado Springs to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 71.6% | 74.1% | 3.36% | 5am–8am, Thu | AA 1170 16:55 |
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 20 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am512 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am540 flights82.6%
- 11am–2pm392 flights73.6%
- 2pm–5pm249 flights71.4%
- 5pm–8pm241 flights65.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.8% of the time, against 65.2% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 540 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.
July is the worst month at 67.8% on time, 17 points below September, the best at 85.0%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 186 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.6%. 8 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. Carrier accounts for 56% of the 52,000 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.
- 56%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, 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 29,000 of the 52,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 52,073 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.95%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% 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 592 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 70.3% on time across 1,934 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,934 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 2.95% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.1 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. 1,870 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
COS to DFW questions
How often is COS 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 22.2% of the 1,934 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.1 hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on COS to DFW?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 80.3% on time across 609 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 74.1%, 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 COS to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.2%, 20 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 July delays on COS to DFW?
July is the weakest month at 67.8% on time, compared with 85.0% in September. 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 COS — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on COS to DFW86.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on COS to DFW80.3%
- American Airlines on COS to DFW74.1%
- COS to DEN, a related route78.8%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- COS to ORD, a related route74.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record86.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.3%
- American Airlines on-time record74.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. COS to DFW and DFW to COS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed COS to DFW’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.