Route reliability record
DFW→MFE
Dallas-Fort Worth to McAllen
- Flights
- 2,445
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 469 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,445 DFW to MFE flights, of which Envoy Air flew 660 at 83.5% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to MFE: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 75.9%, against 70.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 73 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,377 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
83.5% on time across 660 flights
These figures cover 2,445 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% 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 MFE
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 83.5% of the time; American Airlines manages 63.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,684 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 101 | 88.9% | 62 min | 1.98% | A |
| Envoy Air | 660 | 83.5% | 46 min | 1.36% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,684 | 63.4% | 85 min | 3.09% | 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to McAllen
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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → HRLDallas-Fort Worth to Harlingen | Envoy Air | 84.3% | 86.2% | 2.21% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. DFW → BRODallas-Fort Worth to Brownsville | Envoy Air | 83.9% | 85.9% | 2.36% | 8am–11am, Thu (route) | — |
| 3. DFW → MFEDallas-Fort Worth to McAllen | Envoy Air | 82.4% | 83.5% | 1.36% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
| 4. DFW → MFEDallas-Fort Worth to McAllen | American Airlines | 61.4% | 63.4% | 3.09% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 32 points, against 20 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am245 flights85.9%
- 8am–11am439 flights81.6%
- 11am–2pm396 flights73.1%
- 2pm–5pm481 flights68.2%
- 5pm–8pm326 flights67.5%
- 8pm–5am558 flights54.2%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.2% on time, against 85.9% 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 558 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to MFE 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 MFE, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 54.2%, a wide gap of 31.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.9%
- 8–11am81.6%
- 11am–2pm73.1%
- 2–5pm68.2%
- 5–8pm67.5%
- 8pm–5am54.2%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
Delays peak in April, when the on-time rate falls to 63.1%. February is the strongest month at 80.9%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 18 points. August was the busiest month here, with 225 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 75.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.1%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 56,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
- 6%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 56,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 56,320 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 85.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.58%, 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
11.9% 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 469 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 80.5% on time across 2,445 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,445 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 MFE 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 80.9% on time and April 63.1%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of April before you think about anything else. 2,377 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to MFE questions
How often is DFW to MFE 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 30.0% of the 2,445 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to MFE?
Envoy Air leads at 83.5% on time across 660 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 63.4%, 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 MFE?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 54.2%, 32 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 April delays on DFW to MFE?
April is the weakest month at 63.1% on time, compared with 80.9% in February. Across the year that is 18 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
- MFE to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DFW to MFE88.9%
- Envoy Air on DFW to MFE83.5%
- American Airlines on DFW to MFE63.4%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- AUS to MFE, a related route83.8%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record88.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record83.5%
- American Airlines on-time record63.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to MFE and MFE 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.