Route reliability record
DFW→MCI
Dallas-Fort Worth to Kansas City
- Flights
- 2,539
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 460 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,539 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 413 at 86.1% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 89 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,453 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.15%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
86.1% on time across 413 flights
These figures cover 2,539 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% 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 MCI
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 86.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 64.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,995 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 413 | 86.1% | 48 min | 0.73% | A+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 114 | 75.5% | 66 min | 10.53% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 17 | 71.4% | 99 min | 17.65% | C− |
| American Airlines | 1,995 | 64.7% | 78 min | 3.11% | D− |
American Airlines cancels 3.1% 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.
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–8am322 flights78.4%
- 8am–11am487 flights81.3%
- 11am–2pm436 flights72.2%
- 2pm–5pm362 flights73.6%
- 5pm–8pm393 flights53.8%
- 8pm–5am539 flights56.2%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.8% on time, against 81.3% for the 8am–11am 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 539 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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.
July is the worst month at 51.7% on time, 33 points below February, the best at 85.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 240 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 75.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.4%. 16 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 52% of the 58,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
52% 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 58,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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. The split is drawn from 57,729 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 81.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.15%, 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. 12.5% 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 460 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 74.5% on time across 2,537 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,539 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.15% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 2,453 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to MCI questions
How often is DFW to MCI delayed?
About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 31.3% of the 2,539 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 MCI?
Envoy Air leads at 86.1% on time across 413 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 64.7%, 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 MCI?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 81.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.8%, 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 MCI?
July is the weakest month at 51.7% on time, compared with 85.0% in February. Across the year that is 33 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
- MCI to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on-time record86.1%
- PSA Airlines on-time record75.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record71.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. DFW to MCI and MCI 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.