Carrier route record
AADFW→DSM
American Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Des Moines
- Flights
- 971
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 68%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DFW to DSM carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, a little over half of flights arrive on time, worth a D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 971 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on DFW to DSM runs 20 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 204 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
56.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 931 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
66.4%
Every carrier on DFW to DSM, 1,438 flights
These figures cover 971 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 19.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DFW to DSM
American flew 971 of the 1,438 flights on DFW to DSM, most of the route. Its 56.9% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 66.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 88.3% to American at 56.9%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 Airthin sample | 297 | 88.3% | 48 min | 2.02% | A |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 160 | 81.4% | 69 min | 2.50% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 10 | 80.0% | 67 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 971 | 56.9% | 95 min | 4.02% | D− |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on DFW to DSM
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am188 flights76.9%
- 11am–2pm168 flights52.8%
- 2pm–5pm246 flights50.4%
- 5pm–8pm11 flights—
- 8pm–5am357 flights53.2%
Scale runs 40% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 76.9% of the time, against 50.4% for the afternoon 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 357 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DFW to DSM through the year
June is the worst month at 41.7% on time, 36 points below April, the best at 77.6%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 113 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 64.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 46.1%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on DFW to DSM runs when it is late
The 401 late arrivals split 107 under half an hour, 112 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 182 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early121 flights13.0%
- Within 15 min409 flights43.9%
- 15–29 min late107 flights11.5%
- 30–59 min late112 flights12.0%
- 1–2 hours late87 flights9.3%
- 2+ hours late95 flights10.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 931 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 402 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 43 made it up before arrival. 42 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on DFW to DSM
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 June 2026, 14 hours 47 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 June 2026 | 14 hours 47 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 March 2026 | 12 hours | Carrier |
| 15 March 2026 | 10 hours 51 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 31 July 2026 | 9 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 July 2026 | 8 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 38,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 38,145 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 76.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.02%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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 costs
19.5% 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.
The 624 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 69.7% on time across 971 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 971 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on DFW to DSM
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.02% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 931 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to DSM, every carrier
- American on DSM to DFW, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DFW to DSM88.3%
- PSA Airlines on DFW to DSM81.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.