Carrier route record
AADFW→LIT
American Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Little Rock
- Flights
- 425
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 16%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DFW to LIT draws a D. Roughly one flight in two arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is an hour and a half behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 425 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on DFW to LIT runs 18 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 181 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
59.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 414 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.59%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.2%
Every carrier on DFW to LIT, 2,657 flights
These figures cover 425 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 20.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DFW to LIT
American flew 425 of the 2,657 flights on DFW to LIT, about 16% of it. Its 59.2% on time is 19 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 83.1% to American at 59.2%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 (this page) | 425 | 59.2% | 87 min | 2.59% | D |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm43 flights76.2%
- 2pm–5pm123 flights50.4%
- 5pm–8pm44 flights74.4%
- 8pm–5am214 flights57.8%
Scale runs 40% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 76.2% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 50.4%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 214 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DFW to LIT through the year
December is the weak month at 45.8% on time, against 70.5% in May. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 69.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 51.6%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on DFW to LIT runs when it is late
The 169 late arrivals split 36 under half an hour, 49 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 84 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early41 flights9.9%
- Within 15 min204 flights49.3%
- 15–29 min late36 flights8.7%
- 30–59 min late49 flights11.8%
- 1–2 hours late44 flights10.6%
- 2+ hours late40 flights9.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 414 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 180 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 20 made it up before arrival. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on DFW to LIT
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 February 2026, 8 hours 45 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 February 2026 | 8 hours 45 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 October 2025 | 8 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 October 2025 | 8 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 September 2025 | 8 hours | Carrier |
| 7 March 2026 | 7 hours 57 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 40%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 5%National Airspace System
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 14,707 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,859 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.59%, against 1.89% 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 costs
20.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 68.5% on time across 426 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 425 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on DFW to LIT
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 425 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 59.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 414 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to LIT, every carrier
- American on LIT to DFW, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DFW to LIT83.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on DFW to LIT78.0%
- PSA Airlines on DFW to LIT75.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.