Route reliability record
DFW→ELP
Dallas-Fort Worth to El Paso
- Flights
- 2,558
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 551 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,558 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 652 at 80.1% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 99 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,471 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.21%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
80.1% on time across 652 flights
These figures cover 2,558 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
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 80.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 63.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,833 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 652 | 80.1% | 47 min | 1.23% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 34 | 75.8% | 41 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 67.6% | 83 min | 5.13% | C− |
| American Airlines | 1,833 | 63.0% | 78 min | 3.93% | D− |
American Airlines cancels 3.9% 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.
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 19 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am577 flights75.0%
- 11am–2pm541 flights73.8%
- 2pm–5pm446 flights68.1%
- 5pm–8pm458 flights64.1%
- 8pm–5am536 flights56.0%
Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.0% on time, against 75.0% 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 577 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 58.1% on time, 18 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 75.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 61.4%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 58,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 58,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 57,863 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 20,000 of the 58,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.21%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.9% on time across 2,558 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 2,558 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.21% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 2,471 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.3% of the 2,558 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 80.1% on time across 652 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 63.0%, a gap of 17 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 75.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 56.0%, 19 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 58.1% on time, compared with 76.3% in February. Across the year that is 18 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-time record80.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record75.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record67.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.