Carrier route record

OODFW→LIT

SkyWest Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Little Rock

Flights: 403
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 15%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.

SkyWest on DFW to LIT lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 403 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 1,656 at 80.5% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on DFW to LIT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 395 completed flights

Avg delay

66 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.99%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.8%

Every carrier on DFW to LIT, 2,669 flights

These figures cover 403 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

SkyWest against every carrier on DFW to LIT

SkyWest flew 403 of the 2,669 flights on DFW to LIT, about 15% of it. Its 77.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 80.5% to American at 59.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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 (this page)	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

When SkyWest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 12 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am162 flights81.1%
11am–2pm26 flights—
2pm–5pm126 flights76.2%
5pm–8pm89 flights69.3%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 81.1% of the time, against 69.3% for the evening window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 162 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on DFW to LIT through the year

Jul–Sep 202591 flights72.7%
Oct–Dec 2025101 flights81.8%
Jan–Mar 2026112 flights71.8%
Apr–Jun 202699 flights81.6%

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 77.0% on time across 403 flights.

SkyWest on DFW to LIT did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 81.8% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 71.8%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 101 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.1%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 5,998 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
34%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
Extreme weather
23%
National Airspace System
11%

Extreme weather accounts for 23% 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 3.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 5,998 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,061 of the 5,998 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.99% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 70.4% on time across 403 flights, 7 points below 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 7 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 403 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 SkyWest on DFW to LIT

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 403 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 77.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 395 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures