Route reliability record
DFW→LFT
Dallas-Fort Worth to Lafayette
- Flights
- 1,670
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 351 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,670 DFW to LFT flights, of which Envoy Air flew 568 at 79.7% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to LFT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.1%, against 74.5% 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
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,616 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.17%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
79.7% on time across 568 flights
These figures cover 1,670 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
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to LFT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 79.7% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 70.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,036 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 66 | 86.4% | 75 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Air | 568 | 79.7% | 63 min | 2.99% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 1,036 | 70.9% | 92 min | 3.47% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 3.5% 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Lafayette
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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → BTRDallas-Fort Worth to Baton Rouge | Envoy Air | 81.0% | 82.3% | 1.53% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. DFW → LFTDallas-Fort Worth to Lafayette | Envoy Air | 77.3% | 79.7% | 2.99% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 3. DFW → BTRDallas-Fort Worth to Baton Rouge | PSA Airlines | 72.5% | 75.7% | 4.24% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. DFW → LFTDallas-Fort Worth to Lafayette | PSA Airlines | 68.4% | 70.9% | 3.47% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 17 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am466 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm224 flights73.0%
- 2pm–5pm550 flights71.3%
- 5pm–8pm79 flights68.5%
- 8pm–5am351 flights68.0%
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 84.7% of the time, against 68.0% for the overnight window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 550 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.
December is the weak month at 63.8% on time, against 85.0% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 154 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 69.6%. 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 43% of the 34,000 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 18%Extreme weather
- 12%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 18% 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 2.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 34,314 reported delay minutes.
43% 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 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 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 3.17%, 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. 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.
At 351 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 73.5% on time across 1,670 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 1,670 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 LFT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.17% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,616 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to LFT questions
How often is DFW to LFT delayed?
About 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 25.5% of the 1,670 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to LFT?
Envoy Air leads at 79.7% on time across 568 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 70.9%, a gap of 9 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 LFT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.0%, 17 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 LFT?
December is the weakest month at 63.8% on time, compared with 85.0% 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
- LFT to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DFW to LFT79.7%
- PSA Airlines on DFW to LFT70.9%
- DFW to ORD, a related route67.6%
- DFW to LGA, a related route67.1%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record86.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record79.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record70.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to LFT and LFT 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.