Carrier route record
AADFW→PNS
American Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Pensacola
- Flights
- 1,157
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 66%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DFW to PNS carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% 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 D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,157 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on DFW to PNS runs 13 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 132 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
64.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,116 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.28%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
66.7%
Every carrier on DFW to PNS, 1,749 flights
These figures cover 1,157 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.0% 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
American against every carrier on DFW to PNS
American flew 1,157 of the 1,749 flights on DFW to PNS, most of the route. Its 64.4% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 66.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 80.6% to American at 64.4%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 | 202 | 80.6% | 50 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 29 | 79.3% | 166 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 361 | 64.9% | 83 min | 5.26% | D− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,157 | 64.4% | 79 min | 3.28% | D− |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 44 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–8am38 flights76.3%
- 8am–11am256 flights75.5%
- 11am–2pm419 flights65.1%
- 2pm–5pm70 flights32.8%
- 5pm–8pm207 flights58.1%
- 8pm–5am167 flights64.0%
Scale runs 25% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 76.3% of the time, against 32.8% for the afternoon window. That is 44 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 419 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DFW to PNS through the year
June is the worst month at 50.6% on time, 30 points below April, the best at 80.6%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 110 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 67.9% on time and Saturday the weakest at 60.0%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 31,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
53% 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 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 31,443 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 76.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.28%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 16.0% 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 604 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 70.2% on time across 1,157 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,157 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on DFW to PNS
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.28% 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. 1,116 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to PNS, every carrier
- American on PNS to DFW, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DFW to PNS80.6%
- PSA Airlines on DFW to PNS64.9%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.