Route reliability record
DFW→RNO
Dallas-Fort Worth to Reno
- Flights
- 1,274
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,345 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,274 DFW to RNO flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to RNO: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.8%, against 73.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 41 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,235 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.67%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
73.2% on time across 1,274 flights
These figures cover 1,274 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% 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 RNO
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 | 1,274 | 73.2% | 70 min | 2.67% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to RNO
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 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am392 flights86.3%
- 11am–2pm335 flights74.1%
- 2pm–5pm17 flights—
- 5pm–8pm110 flights52.4%
- 8pm–5am420 flights65.5%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 52.4% on time, against 86.3% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 420 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to RNO 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 RNO, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 86.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 52.4%, a wide gap of 33.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am86.3%
- 11am–2pm74.1%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm52.4%
- 8pm–5am65.5%
best all US flightsScale 45% 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 89.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.4%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 23,220 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,135 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.67%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
8.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,345 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 82.0% on time across 1,274 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,274 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 RNO 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. September runs 89.8% on time and April 56.5%, a swing of 33 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of April before you think about anything else. 1,235 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to RNO questions
How often is DFW to RNO 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 26.8% of the 1,274 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 RNO compared with the rest of the country?
73.2% 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 RNO?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 52.4%, 34 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 April delays on DFW to RNO?
April is the weakest month at 56.5% on time, compared with 89.8% in September. 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
- RNO to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- LAS to RNO, a related route78.9%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- American Airlines on-time record73.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to RNO and RNO 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.