Route reliability record
DFW→SAF
Dallas-Fort Worth to Santa Fe
- Flights
- 1,765
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 551 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,765 DFW to SAF flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to SAF: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.0%, against 76.9% 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
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,717 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.32%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
76.9% on time across 1,765 flights
These figures cover 1,765 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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 SAF
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,765 | 76.9% | 75 min | 2.32% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to SAF
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Santa Fe
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → ABQDallas-Fort Worth to Albuquerque | Envoy Air | 80.8% | 82.0% | 1.41% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
| 2. DAL → ABQDallas to Albuquerque | Southwest Airlines | 75.7% | 76.7% | 1.36% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. DFW → SAFDallas-Fort Worth to Santa Fe | SkyWest Airlines | 75.1% | 76.9% | 2.32% | 8am–11am, Wed | OO 6405 20:04 |
| 4. DFW → ABQDallas-Fort Worth to Albuquerque | American Airlines | 63.1% | 65.0% | 2.85% | 8am–11am, Tue | AA 9 14:59 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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–11am441 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm436 flights82.0%
- 2pm–5pm364 flights65.9%
- 5pm–8pm123 flights67.2%
- 8pm–5am401 flights72.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.5% of the time, against 65.9% for the afternoon window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 441 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to SAF 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 SAF, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.5% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 65.9%, a wide gap of 21.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am87.5%
- 11am–2pm82.0%
- 2–5pm65.9%
- 5–8pm67.2%
- 8pm–5am72.2%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
February is the weak month at 67.3% on time, against 82.3% in April. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 185 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.0%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 30,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Carrier
- 26%Extreme weather
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 26% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 4.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 29,916 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 30,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.32% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.40%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.3% 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 551 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 runs 79.5% on time across 1,763 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,765 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 SAF 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. April runs 82.3% on time and February 67.3%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of February before you think about anything else. 1,717 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to SAF questions
How often is DFW to SAF 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 23.1% of the 1,765 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 SAF compared with the rest of the country?
76.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DFW to SAF?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 65.9%, 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 February delays on DFW to SAF?
February is the weakest month at 67.3% on time, compared with 82.3% in April. Across the year that is 15 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
- SAF to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- DEN to SAF, a related route81.0%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record76.9%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. DFW to SAF and SAF 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.