Route reliability record
DFW→LAS
Dallas-Fort Worth to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 5,232
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 1,055 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 5,232 flights, of which Frontier Airlines flew 786 at 79.9% on time.
Frontier Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 79.9% on time across 786 flights.
Key figures
On time
69.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,074 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.71%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Frontier
79.9% on time across 786 flights
These figures cover 5,232 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 LAS
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Frontier Airlines arrives on time 79.9% of the time; American Airlines manages 66.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 4,007 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 786 | 79.9% | 75 min | 2.29% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 439 | 75.9% | 74 min | 1.59% | B |
| American Airlines | 4,007 | 66.5% | 69 min | 2.92% | C |
The spread between Frontier and American is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 28 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am477 flights89.0%
- 8am–11am600 flights83.4%
- 11am–2pm837 flights73.3%
- 2pm–5pm893 flights66.6%
- 5pm–8pm1,026 flights62.5%
- 8pm–5am1,399 flights60.9%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.9% on time, against 89.0% for the 5am–8am 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.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
June is the worst month at 58.2% on time, 19 points below March, 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.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 77.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.9%. 13 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 53% of the 109,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 6%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 109,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 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 89.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.71%, against 1.80% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 1,055 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 80.6% on time across 5,242 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 5,232 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 77.6% on time and June 58.2%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else.
Common questions
DFW to LAS questions
How often is DFW to LAS delayed?
Roughly 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 30.6% of the 5,232 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to LAS?
Frontier Airlines leads at 79.9% on time across 786 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 66.5%, a gap of 13 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 LAS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.9%, 28 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 June delays on DFW to LAS?
June is the weakest month at 58.2% on time, compared with 77.6% in March. Across the year that is 19 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
- LAS to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on-time record79.9%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record75.9%
- American Airlines on-time record66.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DFW to LAS and LAS 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.