Route reliability record
DFW→MCI
Dallas-Fort Worth to Kansas City
- Flights
- 2,526
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,526 DFW to MCI flights, of which Envoy Air flew 373 at 87.0% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to MCI: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 81.9% of the time and Thursday flights 76.4%, against 71.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 62 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,455 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.53%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
87.0% on time across 373 flights
These figures cover 2,526 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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 MCI
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 87.0% of the time; American Airlines manages 67.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,022 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 373 | 87.0% | 44 min | 0.54% | A+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 84 | 75.7% | 71 min | 11.90% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 47 | 72.7% | 73 min | 6.38% | C− |
| American Airlines | 2,022 | 67.9% | 68 min | 2.42% | C |
The spread between Envoy and American is 19 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 19 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to MCI
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Kansas City
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 → MCIDallas-Fort Worth to Kansas City | Envoy Air | 86.5% | 87.0% | 0.54% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. DAL → MCIDallas to Kansas City | Southwest Airlines | 74.5% | 75.6% | 1.41% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. DFW → MCIDallas-Fort Worth to Kansas City | American Airlines | 66.3% | 67.9% | 2.42% | 8am–11am, Fri | AA 2267 20:19 |
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 25 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am313 flights78.6%
- 8am–11am489 flights81.9%
- 11am–2pm436 flights75.1%
- 2pm–5pm362 flights75.0%
- 5pm–8pm364 flights62.9%
- 8pm–5am562 flights57.0%
Scale runs 50% to 85%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.0% on time, against 81.9% 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 562 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to MCI 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 MCI, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 81.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 57.0%, a wide gap of 24.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am78.6%
- 8–11am81.9%
- 11am–2pm75.1%
- 2–5pm75.0%
- 5–8pm62.9%
- 8pm–5am57.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 62.7% on time, against 85.0% in February. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 229 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 76.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.3%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 47,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 47,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 47,180 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 47,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.53%, 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 actually costs
10.9% 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 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 78.6% on time across 2,523 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,526 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 MCI 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. February runs 85.0% on time and December 62.7%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,455 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to MCI questions
How often is DFW to MCI delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.9% of the 2,526 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to MCI?
Envoy Air leads at 87.0% on time across 373 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 67.9%, a gap of 19 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 81.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 57.0%, 25 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 MCI?
December is the weakest month at 62.7% on time, compared with 85.0% in February. Across the year that is 22 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 DFW to MCI87.0%
- American Airlines on DFW to MCI67.9%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- DEN to MCI, a related route76.5%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record87.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record75.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record72.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.
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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.