Route reliability record
DFW→MKE
Dallas-Fort Worth to Milwaukee
- Flights
- 1,084
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 853 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,084 DFW to MKE flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
Best time to fly DFW to MKE: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 76.0%, against 67.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 106 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,039 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.78%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
66.8% on time across 1,075 flights
These figures cover 1,084 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.1% 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 MKE
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 4 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 80.0% | 199 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,075 | 66.8% | 77 min | 3.81% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to MKE
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.
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 38 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am358 flights82.5%
- 11am–2pm2 flights—
- 2pm–5pm361 flights65.4%
- 5pm–8pm168 flights44.4%
- 8pm–5am195 flights60.2%
Scale runs 35% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 44.4% on time, against 82.5% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 361 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 36 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 46.6% on time, 36 points below October, the best at 82.2%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 76.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 54.7%. 21 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 56% of the 27,000 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.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
56% 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 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 26,655 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 82.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.78%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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. 14.1% 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.
The 853 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.9% on time across 1,084 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,084 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MKE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.78% 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. 1,039 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to MKE questions
How often is DFW to MKE 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 33.0% of the 1,084 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DFW to MKE compared with the rest of the country?
67.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 11 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DFW to MKE?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 82.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 44.4%, 38 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 MKE?
July is the weakest month at 46.6% on time, compared with 82.2% in October. Across the year that is 36 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
- MKE to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- DFW to ORD, a related route67.6%
- ORD to MKE, a related route64.1%
- DFW to LGA, a related route67.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record80.0%
- American Airlines on-time record66.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to MKE and MKE to DFW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DFW to MKE’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.