Route reliability record
DFW→BIS
Dallas-Fort Worth to Bismarck
- Flights
- 728
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 977 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 728 DFW to BIS flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to BIS: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.5%, against 80.3% 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
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 719 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
80.3% on time across 728 flights
These figures cover 728 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 BIS
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 Air | 728 | 80.3% | 50 min | 1.10% | B |
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Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 728 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am103 flights84.3%
- 11am–2pm261 flights81.3%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm121 flights79.8%
- 8pm–5am243 flights77.6%
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 84.3% on time for the 8am–11am window against 77.6% for 8pm–5am. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 261 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to BIS 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 BIS, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 84.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 77.6%, a real gap of 6.7 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am84.3%
- 11am–2pm81.3%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm79.8%
- 8pm–5am77.6%
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 24 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.
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 71.0%. February is the strongest month at 94.6%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 24 points. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 75.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 7,091 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 17%Carrier
- 14%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 7,091 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 7,091 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.0% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 977 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 runs 82.4% on time across 728 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 728 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 BIS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 728 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 719 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to BIS questions
How often is DFW to BIS 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 19.7% of the 728 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is DFW to BIS compared with the rest of the country?
80.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DFW to BIS?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 77.6%, 7 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 October delays on DFW to BIS?
October is the weakest month at 71.0% on time, compared with 94.6% in February. Across the year that is 24 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
- BIS to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- DEN to BIS, a related route76.9%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record80.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. DFW to BIS and BIS 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.