Route reliability record
DFW→LAW
Dallas-Fort Worth to Lawton
- Flights
- 1,072
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 140 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 1,072 DFW to LAW flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to LAW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 74.8%, against 72.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 55 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,010 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.22%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
72.2% on time across 998 flights
These figures cover 1,072 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.4% 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 LAW
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 998 | 72.2% | 113 min | 5.31% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 74 | 70.0% | 57 min | 4.05% | C− |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Lawton
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 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → SPSDallas-Fort Worth to Wichita Falls | Envoy Air | 82.5% | 85.9% | 3.95% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 2. DFW → LAWDallas-Fort Worth to Lawton | PSA Airlines | 68.4% | 72.2% | 5.31% | 8am–11am, Tue (route) | — |
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 16 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–8am—
- 8am–11am350 flights82.5%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm47 flights72.7%
- 5pm–8pm317 flights66.6%
- 8pm–5am358 flights66.6%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.5% of the time, against 66.6% for the overnight window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 358 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
December is the weak month at 59.3% on time, against 87.2% in January. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. January was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 74.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.1%. 5 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 55% of the 31,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
55% 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 31,000 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 30,556 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 82.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.22%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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. 14.4% 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.
At 140 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 75.0% on time across 1,072 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,072 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LAW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.22% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 1,010 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to LAW questions
How often is DFW to LAW delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.9% of the 1,072 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is DFW to LAW compared with the rest of the country?
72.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DFW to LAW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 82.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.6%, 16 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 December delays on DFW to LAW?
December is the weakest month at 59.3% on time, compared with 87.2% in January. Across the year that is 28 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
- LAW to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- DFW to ORD, a related route67.6%
- DFW to LGA, a related route67.1%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.8%
- PSA Airlines on-time record72.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record70.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to LAW and LAW 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.