Route reliability record
DFW→PHL
Dallas-Fort Worth to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 3,477
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,303 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 3,477 DFW to PHL flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 75.3%, against 71.4% 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 59 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,355 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.34%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
71.8% on time across 3,188 flights
These figures cover 3,477 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 PHL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 3,188 | 71.8% | 73 min | 3.32% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 289 | 66.5% | 104 min | 3.46% | C− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am695 flights86.4%
- 8am–11am705 flights81.9%
- 11am–2pm536 flights67.2%
- 2pm–5pm648 flights62.7%
- 5pm–8pm602 flights60.5%
- 8pm–5am291 flights58.3%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.3% on time, against 86.4% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 705 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to PHL 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 PHL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 58.3%, a wide gap of 28.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.4%
- 8–11am81.9%
- 11am–2pm67.2%
- 2–5pm62.7%
- 5–8pm60.5%
- 8pm–5am58.3%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 62.3% on time, 17 points below April, the best at 79.4%. 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 341 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 75.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.8%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 73,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 73,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 73,335 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 25,000 of the 73,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.34%, against 1.89% 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
11.4% 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.
The 1,303 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.1% on time across 3,479 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 3,477 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 PHL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.34% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 3,355 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to PHL questions
How often is DFW to PHL 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 28.6% of the 3,477 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DFW to PHL compared with the rest of the country?
71.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 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 PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.3%, 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 PHL?
July is the weakest month at 62.3% on time, compared with 79.4% in April. Across the year that is 17 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
- PHL to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- American Airlines on DFW to PHL71.8%
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to PHL66.5%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.6%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- American Airlines on-time record71.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record66.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to PHL and PHL 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.