Route reliability record
DFW→PIT
Dallas-Fort Worth to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 1,512
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,067 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,512 DFW to PIT flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to PIT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.3% of the time and Friday flights 79.1%, against 73.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,491 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.32%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
73.4% on time across 1,509 flights
These figures cover 1,512 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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 PIT
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 | 1,509 | 73.4% | 67 min | 1.33% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 3 | 66.7% | 60 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to PIT
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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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 35 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am334 flights88.3%
- 8am–11am211 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm201 flights75.9%
- 2pm–5pm256 flights74.3%
- 5pm–8pm403 flights62.7%
- 8pm–5am107 flights52.9%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.9% on time, against 88.3% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 403 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to PIT 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 PIT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 52.9%, a wide gap of 35.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.3%
- 8–11am76.7%
- 11am–2pm75.9%
- 2–5pm74.3%
- 5–8pm62.7%
- 8pm–5am52.9%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
January is the weak month at 62.8% on time, against 83.1% in October. 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 152 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 79.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.3%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 27,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 26,513 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,070 of the 27,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.32% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.2% 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 1,067 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 81.6% on time across 1,511 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 1,512 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 PIT 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. October runs 83.1% on time and January 62.8%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,491 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to PIT questions
How often is DFW to PIT delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.6% of the 1,512 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DFW to PIT compared with the rest of the country?
73.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 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 PIT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 52.9%, 35 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 January delays on DFW to PIT?
January is the weakest month at 62.8% on time, compared with 83.1% in October. Across the year that is 20 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
- PIT to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ORD to PIT, a related route73.6%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- American Airlines on-time record73.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record66.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. DFW to PIT and PIT 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.