Route reliability record
DFW→DAY
Dallas-Fort Worth to Dayton
- Flights
- 1,356
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 861 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,356 DFW to DAY flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to DAY: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.2%, against 74.4% 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
74.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,322 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.21%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
74.4% on time across 1,356 flights
These figures cover 1,356 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% 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 DAY
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 1,356 | 74.4% | 85 min | 2.21% | C |
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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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am469 flights86.3%
- 11am–2pm91 flights82.2%
- 2pm–5pm306 flights68.1%
- 5pm–8pm342 flights68.2%
- 8pm–5am148 flights58.0%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.0% on time, against 86.3% for the 8am–11am 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. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 469 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to DAY 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 DAY, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 86.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 58.0%, a wide gap of 28.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am86.3%
- 11am–2pm82.2%
- 2–5pm68.1%
- 5–8pm68.2%
- 8pm–5am58.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 63.8% on time, 22 points below October, the best at 85.6%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 123 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.2%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 13%Extreme weather
- 11%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 28,931 reported delay minutes.
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one.
Cancellations sit at 2.21% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
12.4% 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 861 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 80.2% on time across 1,359 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,356 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 DAY 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 85.6% on time and June 63.8%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,322 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to DAY questions
How often is DFW to DAY 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 25.6% of the 1,356 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DFW to DAY compared with the rest of the country?
74.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DFW to DAY?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.0%, 28 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 DAY?
June is the weakest month at 63.8% on time, compared with 85.6% in October. Across the year that is 22 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
- DAY to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ORD to DAY, a related route66.2%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- PSA Airlines on-time record74.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DFW to DAY and DAY 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.