Route reliability record
DFW→SDF
Dallas-Fort Worth to Louisville
- Flights
- 2,014
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 733 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,014 DFW to SDF flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 463 at 81.5% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to SDF: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 75.1%, against 71.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 64 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,941 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.53%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
81.5% on time across 463 flights
These figures cover 2,014 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.0% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to SDF
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. PSA Airlines arrives on time 81.5% of the time; American Airlines manages 62.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,174 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 56 | 85.2% | 45 min | 3.57% | A− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 309 | 84.7% | 54 min | 2.59% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 12 | 83.3% | 77 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 463 | 81.5% | 93 min | 5.40% | B− |
| American Airlines | 1,174 | 62.9% | 83 min | 3.07% | D− |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Louisville
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → SDFDallas-Fort Worth to Louisville | PSA Airlines | 77.1% | 81.5% | 5.40% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 2. DFW → SDFDallas-Fort Worth to Louisville | American Airlines | 61.0% | 62.9% | 3.07% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 30 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am217 flights77.4%
- 8am–11am489 flights85.8%
- 11am–2pm255 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm488 flights66.8%
- 5pm–8pm381 flights58.0%
- 8pm–5am184 flights55.9%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.9% on time, against 85.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 489 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 2,014 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
December is the weak month at 65.4% on time, against 77.1% in May. 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 196 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 75.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.6%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 45,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% 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 45,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 45,434 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 16,000 of the 45,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.53%, 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.0% 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 733 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 74.9% on time across 2,015 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,014 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 SDF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.53% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 1,941 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to SDF questions
How often is DFW to SDF delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.8% of the 2,014 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to SDF?
PSA Airlines leads at 81.5% on time across 463 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 62.9%, a gap of 19 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DFW to SDF?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 85.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.9%, 30 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 December delays on DFW to SDF?
December is the weakest month at 65.4% on time, compared with 77.1% in May. Across the year that is 12 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
- SDF to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DFW to SDF84.7%
- PSA Airlines on DFW to SDF81.5%
- American Airlines on DFW to SDF62.9%
- DFW to ORD, a related route67.6%
- ORD to SDF, a related route75.3%
- DFW to LGA, a related route67.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record84.7%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record83.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DFW to SDF and SDF to DFW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DFW to SDF’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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.