Route reliability record

DFW→AUS

Dallas-Fort Worth to Austin

Flights: 4,766
Period: June 2025 to May 2026
Distance: 190 mi
Carriers: 4

This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,766 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 704 at 77.3% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.4%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 95 extra late arrivals.

On time

67.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,604 completed flights

Avg delay

70 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.25%

National rate is 1.80%

Best carrier

Envoy

77.3% on time across 704 flights

These figures cover 4,766 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% 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 DFW to AUS

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 77.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 65.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,605 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on DFW to AUS
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Air	704	77.3%	50 min	3.69%	B−
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	356	74.7%	72 min	1.97%	C
PSA Airlinesthin sample	101	72.3%	78 min	6.93%	C−
American Airlines	3,605	65.2%	72 min	3.19%	C−

Envoy Air cancels 3.7% 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 23 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am406 flights82.8%
8am–11am985 flights77.2%
11am–2pm590 flights69.2%
2pm–5pm840 flights64.7%
5pm–8pm998 flights61.6%
8pm–5am947 flights60.0%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.0% on time, against 82.8% 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.

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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, June worst

June is the worst month at 61.3% on time, 16 points below February, the best at 77.4%. 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.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.6%. 17 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 49% of the 103,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
49%
Carrier
31%
National Airspace System
13%
Extreme weather
8%
Security
0%

49% 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 103,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 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 82.8% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.25%, against 1.80% nationally. That is about 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. 12.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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.

At 190 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.1% on time across 4,767 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 4,766 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.25% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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.

Common questions

DFW to AUS questions

How often is DFW to AUS delayed?

About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.1% of the 4,766 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on DFW to AUS?

Envoy Air leads at 77.3% on time across 704 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 65.2%, a gap of 12 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 AUS?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 82.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.0%, 23 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 AUS?

June is the weakest month at 61.3% on time, compared with 77.4% in February. 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.

Where to go next

Direction matters. DFW to AUS and AUS 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures