Route reliability record
DFW→ATL
Dallas-Fort Worth to Atlanta
- Flights
- 6,703
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 731 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,703 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,792 at 82.8% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 82.8% on time across 2,792 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,504 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.79%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
82.8% on time across 2,792 flights
These figures cover 6,703 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 DFW to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 82.8% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 65.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 876 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,792 | 82.8% | 82 min | 2.54% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 84 | 81.5% | 49 min | 2.38% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 300 | 72.9% | 66 min | 2.67% | C |
| American Airlines | 2,635 | 71.9% | 71 min | 3.19% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 16 | 66.7% | 58 min | 6.25% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 876 | 65.6% | 68 min | 2.40% | C |
American Airlines cancels 3.2% 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.
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 18 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,454 flights82.7%
- 8am–11am1,297 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm1,128 flights81.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,131 flights67.0%
- 5pm–8pm1,031 flights65.5%
- 8pm–5am662 flights67.5%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 83.3% of the time, against 65.5% for the evening window. That is 18 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 1,454 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 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 69.4% on time, 14 points below February, the best at 83.7%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 591 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.5%. 9 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 46% of the 115,000 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% 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 115,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 115,079 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 83.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.79%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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. 9.4% 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 731 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 74.3% on time across 6,698 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.
The sample behind these figures is 6,703 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 83.7% on time and June 69.4%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 6,504 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to ATL questions
How often is DFW to ATL delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.2% of the 6,703 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.8% on time across 2,792 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 65.6%, a gap of 17 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 DFW to ATL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.5%, 18 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 ATL?
June is the weakest month at 69.4% on time, compared with 83.7% in February. Across the year that is 14 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
- ATL to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record81.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record72.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. DFW to ATL and ATL to DFW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.