Route reliability record
DFW→ACT
Dallas-Fort Worth to Waco
- Flights
- 1,072
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 90 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,072 DFW to ACT flights, of which Envoy Air flew 615 at 82.2% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to ACT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.3%, against 82.0% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 47 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,032 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.73%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
82.2% on time across 615 flights
These figures cover 1,072 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to ACT
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 615 | 82.2% | 58 min | 3.09% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 457 | 81.7% | 99 min | 4.60% | B− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 4.6% 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.
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-Fort Worth to Waco
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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → ACTDallas-Fort Worth to Waco | Envoy Air | 79.7% | 82.2% | 3.09% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. DFW → GRKDallas-Fort Worth to Killeen | Envoy Air | 78.7% | 81.7% | 3.73% | 8am–11am, Tue | MQ 3569 22:47 |
| 3. DFW → ACTDallas-Fort Worth to Waco | SkyWest Airlines | 77.9% | 81.7% | 4.60% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 4. DFW → GRKDallas-Fort Worth to Killeen | SkyWest Airlines | 71.8% | 75.6% | 5.03% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am358 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm266 flights76.5%
- 5pm–8pm92 flights73.9%
- 8pm–5am355 flights80.8%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.2% of the time, against 73.9% for the evening window. That is 15 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 358 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to ACT 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 DFW to ACT, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 89.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 73.9%, a wide gap of 15.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am89.2%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm76.5%
- 5–8pm73.9%
- 8pm–5am80.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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 74.1% on time, 16 points below April, the best at 89.7%. 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 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 74.6%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 13%Extreme weather
- 8%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 14,091 reported delay minutes.
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations run at 3.73%, against 1.89% 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 actually costs
6.7% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 90 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.7% on time across 1,072 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,072 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 ACT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.73% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,032 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to ACT questions
How often is DFW to ACT delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.0% of the 1,072 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to ACT?
Envoy Air leads at 82.2% on time across 615 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 81.7%, a gap of half a point. 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 DFW to ACT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.9%, 15 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 DFW to ACT?
June is the weakest month at 74.1% on time, compared with 89.7% in April. Across the year that is 16 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
- ACT to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DFW to ACT82.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on DFW to ACT81.7%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- DFW to LGA, a related route66.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record82.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record81.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to ACT and ACT to DFW 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.