Route reliability record
DFW→CID
Dallas-Fort Worth to Cedar Rapids
- Flights
- 1,190
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 685 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,190 DFW to CID flights, of which Envoy Air flew 572 at 85.1% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to CID: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.6%, against 74.9% 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
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,156 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
85.1% on time across 572 flights
These figures cover 1,190 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% 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 CID
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 85.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 62.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 526 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 572 | 85.1% | 65 min | 1.40% | A |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 92 | 78.7% | 70 min | 2.17% | B |
| American Airlines | 526 | 62.8% | 77 min | 3.61% | D− |
American Airlines cancels 3.6% 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Cedar Rapids
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 → CIDDallas-Fort Worth to Cedar Rapids | Envoy Air | 83.9% | 85.1% | 1.40% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. DFW → CIDDallas-Fort Worth to Cedar Rapids | American Airlines | 60.5% | 62.8% | 3.61% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 27 points, against 22 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am50 flights92.0%
- 8am–11am295 flights75.9%
- 11am–2pm68 flights82.1%
- 2pm–5pm317 flights76.9%
- 5pm–8pm76 flights65.3%
- 8pm–5am384 flights70.9%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.0% of the time, against 65.3% for the evening window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 384 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to CID 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 CID, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.3%, a wide gap of 26.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.0%
- 8–11am75.9%
- 11am–2pm82.1%
- 2–5pm76.9%
- 5–8pm65.3%
- 8pm–5am70.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 38 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 90.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.2%, a spread of 24 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 21,278 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 92.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.44% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.42%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.3% 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.
The 685 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.2% on time across 1,190 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,190 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 CID after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 90.5% on time and March 53.0%, a swing of 38 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,156 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to CID questions
How often is DFW to CID delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.1% of the 1,190 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 CID?
Envoy Air leads at 85.1% on time across 572 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 62.8%, a gap of 22 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 CID?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.3%, 27 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 March delays on DFW to CID?
March is the weakest month at 53.0% on time, compared with 90.5% in October. Across the year that is 38 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
- CID to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DFW to CID85.1%
- American Airlines on DFW to CID62.8%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ORD to CID, a related route67.1%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record85.1%
- PSA Airlines on-time record78.7%
- American Airlines on-time record62.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DFW to CID and CID 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.