Route reliability record
DFW→LIT
Dallas-Fort Worth to Little Rock
- Flights
- 2,657
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 304 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 rests on 2,657 DFW to LIT flights, of which Envoy Air flew 1,748 at 83.1% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to LIT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.9%, against 78.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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 2,599 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.15%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
83.1% on time across 1,748 flights
These figures cover 2,657 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to LIT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 83.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 59.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 425 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 1,748 | 83.1% | 58 min | 1.95% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 342 | 78.0% | 69 min | 1.75% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 142 | 75.7% | 67 min | 4.23% | B− |
| American Airlines | 425 | 59.2% | 87 min | 2.59% | D |
The spread between Envoy and American is 24 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 24 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Little Rock
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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → LITDallas-Fort Worth to Little Rock | Envoy Air | 81.5% | 83.1% | 1.95% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. DAL → LITDallas to Little Rock | Southwest Airlines | 71.1% | 71.6% | 0.67% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. DFW → LITDallas-Fort Worth to Little Rock | American Airlines | 57.7% | 59.2% | 2.59% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
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 23 points, against 24 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am271 flights91.3%
- 8am–11am493 flights84.4%
- 11am–2pm256 flights84.2%
- 2pm–5pm581 flights75.3%
- 5pm–8pm561 flights75.7%
- 8pm–5am495 flights68.2%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.3% of the time, against 68.2% for the overnight window. That is 23 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 581 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to LIT by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On DFW to LIT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 68.2%, a wide gap of 23.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.3%
- 8–11am84.4%
- 11am–2pm84.2%
- 2–5pm75.3%
- 5–8pm75.7%
- 8pm–5am68.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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 69.5% on time, against 84.6% 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 256 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 39,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 14%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 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 38,747 reported delay minutes.
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one.
Cancellations sit at 2.15% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.04%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 304 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 76.4% on time across 2,658 flights, within 2 points 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 2,657 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 LIT 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 84.6% on time and December 69.5%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,599 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to LIT questions
How often is DFW to LIT 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 2,657 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to LIT?
Envoy Air leads at 83.1% on time across 1,748 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 59.2%, a gap of 24 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 LIT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.2%, 23 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 LIT?
December is the weakest month at 69.5% on time, compared with 84.6% in January. Across the year that is 15 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
- LIT to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DFW to LIT83.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on DFW to LIT78.0%
- PSA Airlines on DFW to LIT75.7%
- American Airlines on DFW to LIT59.2%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ATL to LIT, a related route84.6%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record83.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record78.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record75.7%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to LIT and LIT 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.