Route reliability record
DFW→SBN
Dallas-Fort Worth to South Bend
- Flights
- 984
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 846 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 984 DFW to SBN flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to SBN: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.4%, against 73.9% 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
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 961 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.93%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
72.7% on time across 788 flights
These figures cover 984 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% 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 SBN
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 196 | 78.7% | 49 min | 3.57% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 788 | 72.7% | 96 min | 1.52% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to SBN
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 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am258 flights82.0%
- 11am–2pm261 flights75.7%
- 2pm–5pm104 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm360 flights67.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.0% of the time, against 67.6% for the evening window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 360 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to SBN 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 SBN, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 82.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.6%, a wide gap of 14.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am82.0%
- 11am–2pm75.7%
- 2–5pm70.9%
- 5–8pm67.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 54.5% on time, against 81.6% in December. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.2%, a spread of 14 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 22,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 23% 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 3.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 22,123 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,887 of the 22,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.93% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
12.4% 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 846 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 73.4% on time across 984 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 984 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 SBN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 984 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 73.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 961 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to SBN questions
How often is DFW to SBN 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 26.1% of the 984 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DFW to SBN compared with the rest of the country?
73.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 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 SBN?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 82.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.6%, 14 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 SBN?
February is the weakest month at 54.5% on time, compared with 81.6% in December. Across the year that is 27 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
- SBN to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on DFW to SBN78.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on DFW to SBN72.7%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ORD to SBN, a related route63.1%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- PSA Airlines on-time record78.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record72.7%
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DFW to SBN and SBN 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.