Route reliability record
DFW→PSP
Dallas-Fort Worth to Palm Springs
- Flights
- 997
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,126 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 997 DFW to PSP flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to PSP: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 80.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.1%, against 72.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 52 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 965 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.91%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
72.1% on time across 997 flights
These figures cover 997 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to PSP
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 | 997 | 72.1% | 65 min | 2.91% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to PSP
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.
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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am307 flights80.2%
- 11am–2pm330 flights75.5%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm279 flights58.4%
- 8pm–5am81 flights74.0%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.4% on time, against 80.2% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 330 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to PSP 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 PSP, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 80.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 58.4%, a wide gap of 21.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am80.2%
- 11am–2pm75.5%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm58.4%
- 8pm–5am74.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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 47.5% on time, 33 points below November, the best at 80.0%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 59.2%, a spread of 20 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 17,485 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 80.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.91%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
9.5% 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 1,126 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 80.8% on time across 997 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 997 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 PSP after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.91% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 965 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to PSP questions
How often is DFW to PSP delayed?
Roughly 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 27.9% of the 997 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DFW to PSP compared with the rest of the country?
72.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 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 PSP?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 80.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.4%, 22 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 PSP?
July is the weakest month at 47.5% on time, compared with 80.0% in November. Across the year that is 33 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
- PSP to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- SFO to PSP, a related route73.9%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- American Airlines on-time record72.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to PSP and PSP to DFW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DFW to PSP’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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.