Route reliability record
DFW→MEM
Dallas-Fort Worth to Memphis
- Flights
- 2,344
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 431 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 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,344 DFW to MEM flights, of which Envoy Air flew 599 at 82.7% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to MEM: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 78.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 76.0%, against 68.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 86 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,285 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
82.7% on time across 599 flights
These figures cover 2,344 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 MEM
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 82.7% of the time; American Airlines manages 62.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,550 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 599 | 82.7% | 61 min | 1.84% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 156 | 77.1% | 61 min | 1.92% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 73.7% | 37 min | 2.56% | C |
| American Airlines | 1,550 | 62.3% | 70 min | 2.84% | D |
The spread between Envoy and American is 20 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 20 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to MEM
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 Memphis
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → MEMDallas-Fort Worth to Memphis | Envoy Air | 81.2% | 82.7% | 1.84% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. DFW → MEMDallas-Fort Worth to Memphis | American Airlines | 60.5% | 62.3% | 2.84% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1935 09:35 |
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 28 points, against 20 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am203 flights78.9%
- 8am–11am363 flights78.2%
- 11am–2pm416 flights75.7%
- 2pm–5pm495 flights75.0%
- 5pm–8pm347 flights61.4%
- 8pm–5am520 flights51.1%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.1% on time, against 78.9% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 520 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to MEM 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 MEM, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 78.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 51.1%, a wide gap of 27.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am78.9%
- 8–11am78.2%
- 11am–2pm75.7%
- 2–5pm75.0%
- 5–8pm61.4%
- 8pm–5am51.1%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
June is the worst month at 59.8% on time, 24 points below September, the best at 83.6%. 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 243 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.0% 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 50% of the 48,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 48,260 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 78.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.52%, 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
11.0% 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 431 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.1% on time across 2,347 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,344 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 MEM 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. September runs 83.6% on time and June 59.8%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,285 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to MEM questions
How often is DFW to MEM delayed?
About 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 31.3% of the 2,344 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 MEM?
Envoy Air leads at 82.7% on time across 599 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 62.3%, a gap of 20 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 MEM?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 78.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 51.1%, 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 June delays on DFW to MEM?
June is the weakest month at 59.8% on time, compared with 83.6% in September. Across the year that is 24 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
- MEM to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Memphis International (MEM) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DFW to MEM82.7%
- PSA Airlines on DFW to MEM77.1%
- American Airlines on DFW to MEM62.3%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ATL to MEM, a related route81.1%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record82.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record77.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record73.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DFW to MEM and MEM 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.