Route reliability record

DFW→LIT

Dallas-Fort Worth to Little Rock

Flights: 2,669
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 304 mi
Carriers: 4

This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,669 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 1,656 at 80.5% on time.

Envoy Air is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 80.5% on time across 1,656 flights.

On time

75.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,600 completed flights

Avg delay

72 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.47%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Envoy

80.5% on time across 1,656 flights

These figures cover 2,669 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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 LIT

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 80.5% of the time; American Airlines manages 59.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 518 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on DFW to LIT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Air	1,656	80.5%	60 min	2.36%	B
PSA Airlinesthin sample	92	77.3%	81 min	4.35%	B−
SkyWest Airlines	403	77.0%	66 min	1.99%	B
American Airlines	518	59.2%	92 min	2.90%	D

The spread between Envoy and American is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 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 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am209 flights90.6%
8am–11am554 flights83.7%
11am–2pm259 flights82.7%
2pm–5pm642 flights73.1%
5pm–8pm514 flights73.6%
8pm–5am491 flights62.7%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.7% on time, against 90.6% 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. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 642 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 20 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.January best, July worst

July is the worst month at 64.2% on time, 20 points below January, the best at 84.6%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 256 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.2%. 14 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 47% of the 45,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
47%
Carrier
28%
National Airspace System
14%
Extreme weather
11%

Extreme weather accounts for 11% 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 1.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 45,155 reported delay minutes.

47% 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 45,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 sit at 2.47% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.

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. 9.0% 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 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 73.2% on time across 2,670 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.

The sample behind these figures is 2,669 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. January runs 84.6% on time and July 64.2%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,600 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

DFW to LIT questions

How often is DFW to LIT delayed?

About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.2% of the 2,669 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 80.5% on time across 1,656 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 59.2%, a gap of 21 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 90.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.7%, 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 July delays on DFW to LIT?

July is the weakest month at 64.2% on time, compared with 84.6% in January. Across the year that is 20 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

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.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures