Route reliability record
DAL→ABQ
Dallas to Albuquerque
- Flights
- 1,623
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 580 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That rests on 1,623 DAL to ABQ flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly DAL to ABQ: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.0%, against 76.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,598 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.36%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
76.7% on time across 1,623 flights
These figures cover 1,623 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DAL to ABQ
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,623 | 76.7% | 54 min | 1.36% | B |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas to Albuquerque
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → ABQDallas-Fort Worth to Albuquerque | Envoy Air | 80.8% | 82.0% | 1.41% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
| 2. DAL → ABQDallas to Albuquerque | Southwest Airlines | 75.7% | 76.7% | 1.36% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. DFW → SAFDallas-Fort Worth to Santa Fe | SkyWest Airlines | 75.1% | 76.9% | 2.32% | 8am–11am, Wed | OO 6405 20:04 |
| 4. DFW → ABQDallas-Fort Worth to Albuquerque | American Airlines | 63.1% | 65.0% | 2.85% | 8am–11am, Tue | AA 9 14:59 |
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 42 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am31 flights96.8%
- 8am–11am377 flights90.8%
- 11am–2pm366 flights83.7%
- 2pm–5pm274 flights77.8%
- 5pm–8pm279 flights68.0%
- 8pm–5am296 flights54.8%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.8% on time, against 96.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 377 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DAL to ABQ by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On DAL to ABQ, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 54.8%, a wide gap of 42.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.8%
- 8–11am90.8%
- 11am–2pm83.7%
- 2–5pm77.8%
- 5–8pm68.0%
- 8pm–5am54.8%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 58.7% on time, 28 points below January, the best at 86.6%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 162 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 74.1%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 20,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 6%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
59% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 20,172 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 96.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.36% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 580 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.4% on time across 1,625 flights, 6 points above 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,623 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 ABQ after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 86.6% on time and June 58.7%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,598 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DAL to ABQ questions
How often is DAL to ABQ delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.3% of the 1,623 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is DAL to ABQ compared with the rest of the country?
76.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DAL to ABQ?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 54.8%, 42 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 DAL to ABQ?
June is the weakest month at 58.7% on time, compared with 86.6% in January. Across the year that is 28 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
- ABQ to DAL — the return legseparate record
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) delay statistics
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.8%
- PHX to ABQ, a related route77.9%
- DAL to ATL, a related route78.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DAL to ABQ and ABQ to DAL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DAL to ABQ’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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.