Route reliability record
DFW→IAD
Dallas-Fort Worth to Washington
- Flights
- 1,928
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,172 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,928 DFW to IAD flights, of which United Airlines flew 915 at 84.4% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to IAD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.5%, against 78.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,882 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.28%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
84.4% on time across 915 flights
These figures cover 1,928 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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 IAD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 84.4% of the time; American Airlines manages 69.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 843 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 161 | 87.9% | 81 min | 2.48% | A |
| United Airlines | 915 | 84.4% | 93 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 843 | 69.7% | 72 min | 3.68% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 9 | 55.6% | 104 min | 0.00% | D+ |
American Airlines cancels 3.7% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to IAD
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Washington
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → IADDallas-Fort Worth to Washington | United Airlines | 83.6% | 84.4% | 0.98% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2639 07:25 |
| 2. DAL → BWIDallas to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 73.5% | 74.9% | 1.92% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. DFW → DCADallas-Fort Worth to Washington | American Airlines | 70.2% | 72.5% | 3.18% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1177 08:32 |
| 4. DFW → IADDallas-Fort Worth to Washington | American Airlines | 67.1% | 69.7% | 3.68% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. DAL → DCADallas to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 66.8% | 68.0% | 1.73% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 20 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am519 flights88.6%
- 8am–11am36 flights80.6%
- 11am–2pm620 flights76.8%
- 2pm–5pm85 flights68.3%
- 5pm–8pm667 flights72.4%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.6% of the time, against 68.3% for the afternoon window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 667 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 67.7% on time, 21 points below January, the best at 88.8%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 196 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.1%. 10 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 47% of the 33,000 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
47% 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 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 32,611 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 88.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.28% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.
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. 9.5% 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 1,172 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 runs 77.1% on time across 1,928 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,928 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 IAD 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. January runs 88.8% on time and July 67.7%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,882 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to IAD questions
How often is DFW to IAD delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.8% of the 1,928 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 IAD?
United Airlines leads at 84.4% on time across 915 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 69.7%, a gap of 15 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 IAD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 68.3%, 20 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 IAD?
July is the weakest month at 67.7% on time, compared with 88.8% in January. Across the year that is 21 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
- IAD to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to IAD87.9%
- United Airlines on DFW to IAD84.4%
- American Airlines on DFW to IAD69.7%
- DFW to ORD, a related route67.6%
- ATL to IAD, a related route76.5%
- DFW to LGA, a related route67.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record87.9%
- United Airlines on-time record84.4%
- American Airlines on-time record69.7%
- 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 IAD and IAD 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.