Carrier route record
AADFW→JFK
American Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to New York
- Flights
- 1,404
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 70%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DFW to JFK sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,404 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on DFW to JFK runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 53 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,363 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.64%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.0%
Every carrier on DFW to JFK, 2,009 flights
These figures cover 1,404 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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
American against every carrier on DFW to JFK
American flew 1,404 of the 2,009 flights on DFW to JFK, most of the route. Its 72.3% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 88.8% to American at 72.3%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 434 | 88.8% | 75 min | 4.84% | A− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 171 | 87.0% | 31 min | 1.17% | A |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,404 | 72.3% | 72 min | 2.64% | C |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on DFW to JFK
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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am319 flights83.7%
- 8am–11am348 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm421 flights70.0%
- 2pm–5pm209 flights56.0%
- 5pm–8pm107 flights63.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.7% of the time, against 56.0% for the afternoon window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 421 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DFW to JFK through the year
June is the worst month at 51.1% on time, 31 points below November, the best at 81.9%. 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 150 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.6%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 27,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 12%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 12% 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 2.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 27,171 reported delay minutes.
37% 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 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 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.
Cancellations run at 2.64%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.6% 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 1,391 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 77.6% on time across 1,409 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,404 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 American on DFW to JFK
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 81.9% on time and June 51.1%, a swing of 31 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,363 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to JFK, every carrier
- American on JFK to DFW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DFW to JFK88.8%
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to JFK87.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.