Route reliability record
DAY→DFW
Dayton to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,364
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 861 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 1,364 DAY to DFW flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly DAY to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.2%, against 79.0% 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
79.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,322 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
79.0% on time across 1,362 flights
These figures cover 1,364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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 DAY 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 Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 1,362 | 79.0% | 87 min | 2.28% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on DAY 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.
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 16 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–8am366 flights86.4%
- 8am–11am156 flights82.7%
- 11am–2pm361 flights78.2%
- 2pm–5pm139 flights78.5%
- 5pm–8pm342 flights70.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.4% of the time, against 70.6% for the evening window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 366 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 1,364 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
June is the worst month at 75.0% on time, 8 points below October, the best at 82.6%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 123 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.9%. 7 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 47% 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
47% 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 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 24,084 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 86.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.27% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.81%.
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. 9.5% 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 861 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 75.4% on time across 1,362 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,364 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: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 70.6% on time against 86.4% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 16 points is the largest single thing you control here. PSA Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 1,322 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DAY to DFW questions
How often is DAY to DFW delayed?
About 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 21.0% of the 1,364 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DAY to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
79.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DAY to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 70.6%, 16 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 DAY to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 75.0% on time, compared with 82.6% in October. Across the year that is 8 points between the best and worst months. The seasonal swing is modest enough that it should not decide when you travel.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to DAY — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- DAY to ORD, a related route71.9%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- DAY to ATL, a related route89.7%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record79.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DAY to DFW and DFW to DAY 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.