Route reliability record
DFW→ELP
Dallas-Fort Worth to El Paso
- Flights
- 2,594
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 551 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,594 DFW to ELP flights, of which Envoy Air flew 602 at 82.7% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to ELP: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 77.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 77.5%, against 68.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 92 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,520 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
82.7% on time across 602 flights
These figures cover 2,594 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.7% 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 ELP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 82.7% of the time; American Airlines manages 63.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,914 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 602 | 82.7% | 48 min | 0.83% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 78.9% | 41 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 67.6% | 83 min | 5.13% | C− |
| American Airlines | 1,914 | 63.2% | 80 min | 3.13% | D− |
American Airlines cancels 3.1% 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 El Paso
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → ELPDallas-Fort Worth to El Paso | Envoy Air | 82.0% | 82.7% | 0.83% | 11am–2pm, Thu | — |
| 2. DAL → ELPDallas to El Paso | Southwest Airlines | 73.2% | 73.9% | 0.96% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. DFW → ELPDallas-Fort Worth to El Paso | American Airlines | 61.2% | 63.2% | 3.13% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 24 points, against 20 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am569 flights77.1%
- 11am–2pm544 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm505 flights66.9%
- 5pm–8pm382 flights67.5%
- 8pm–5am594 flights52.9%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.9% on time, against 77.1% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 594 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to ELP 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 ELP, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 77.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 52.9%, a wide gap of 24.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am77.1%
- 11am–2pm76.5%
- 2–5pm66.9%
- 5–8pm67.5%
- 8pm–5am52.9%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
July is the worst month at 63.0% on time, 13 points below February, the best at 76.3%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 235 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.5%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 61,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 61,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 60,673 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 22,000 of the 61,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.58%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
12.7% 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 551 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 78.4% on time across 2,593 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 2,594 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 ELP 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. February runs 76.3% on time and July 63.0%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,520 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to ELP questions
How often is DFW to ELP 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 31.9% of the 2,594 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 ELP?
Envoy Air leads at 82.7% on time across 602 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 63.2%, a gap of 20 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 ELP?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 77.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 52.9%, 24 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 July delays on DFW to ELP?
July is the weakest month at 63.0% on time, compared with 76.3% in February. Across the year that is 13 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
- ELP to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DFW to ELP82.7%
- American Airlines on DFW to ELP63.2%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- PHX to ELP, a related route75.9%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record82.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record78.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record67.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DFW to ELP and ELP 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.