Route reliability record
DFW→BOS
Dallas-Fort Worth to Boston
- Flights
- 3,695
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,562 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route draws a C−. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 3,695 DFW to BOS flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 868 at 76.2% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to BOS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.0% of the time and Friday flights 70.1%, against 67.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 101 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,570 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
76.2% on time across 868 flights
These figures cover 3,695 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to BOS
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 76.2% of the time; American Airlines manages 64.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,658 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 868 | 76.2% | 86 min | 2.42% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,658 | 64.9% | 69 min | 3.27% | D− |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 169 | 57.1% | 84 min | 4.14% | D− |
American Airlines cancels 3.3% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to BOS
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Boston
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → BOSDallas-Fort Worth to Boston | Delta Air Lines | 74.4% | 76.2% | 2.42% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 2351 07:05 |
| 2. DFW → BOSDallas-Fort Worth to Boston | American Airlines | 62.8% | 64.9% | 3.27% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 1206 07:00 |
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 37 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am700 flights87.0%
- 8am–11am715 flights73.9%
- 11am–2pm743 flights61.8%
- 2pm–5pm502 flights50.3%
- 5pm–8pm1,035 flights61.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.0% of the time, against 50.3% for the afternoon window. That is 37 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,035 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to BOS 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 BOS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.0% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 50.3%, a wide gap of 36.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.0%
- 8–11am73.9%
- 11am–2pm61.8%
- 2–5pm50.3%
- 5–8pm61.0%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 49.7%. March is the strongest month at 78.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 28 points. October was the busiest month here, with 350 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 70.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.8%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 85,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 26%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 85,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 85,222 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 87.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.11%, against 1.89% 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
13.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 1,562 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.4% on time across 3,692 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,695 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 BOS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.11% 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. 3,570 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to BOS questions
How often is DFW to BOS delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.8% of the 3,695 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 BOS?
Delta Air Lines leads at 76.2% on time across 868 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 64.9%, a gap of 11 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 BOS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 50.3%, 37 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 BOS?
October is the weakest month at 49.7% on time, compared with 78.0% in March. Across the year that is 28 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
- BOS to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DFW to BOS76.2%
- American Airlines on DFW to BOS64.9%
- JetBlue Airways on DFW to BOS57.1%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.2%
- American Airlines on-time record64.9%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record57.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to BOS and BOS 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.