Route reliability record
DFW→SJC
Dallas-Fort Worth to San Jose
- Flights
- 1,090
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,438 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 1,090 DFW to SJC flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to SJC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 76.3%, against 73.1% 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 42 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,071 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.74%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
73.1% on time across 1,090 flights
These figures cover 1,090 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 SJC
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 | 1,090 | 73.1% | 68 min | 1.74% | C |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to San Jose
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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → SJCDallas-Fort Worth to San Jose | American Airlines | 71.8% | 73.1% | 1.74% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. DFW → SFODallas-Fort Worth to San Francisco | United Airlines | 69.7% | 70.2% | 0.66% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. DFW → SFODallas-Fort Worth to San Francisco | American Airlines | 56.7% | 58.2% | 2.55% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1949 07:10 |
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am6 flights—
- 8am–11am329 flights83.7%
- 11am–2pm322 flights67.6%
- 2pm–5pm65 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm188 flights73.1%
- 8pm–5am180 flights63.4%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.4% on time, against 83.7% 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 329 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to SJC 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 SJC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 83.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 63.4%, a wide gap of 20.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am83.7%
- 11am–2pm67.6%
- 2–5pm72.3%
- 5–8pm73.1%
- 8pm–5am63.4%
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 16 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.
June is the worst month at 64.0% on time, 16 points below November, the best at 79.8%. 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. February was the busiest month here, with 95 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.2%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 20,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 12%Extreme weather
- 8%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 12% 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 2.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 19,666 reported delay minutes.
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one.
Cancellations sit at 1.74% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.0% 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 1,438 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 81.4% on time across 1,093 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,090 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 SJC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,090 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 73.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,071 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to SJC questions
How often is DFW to SJC 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 26.9% of the 1,090 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 SJC compared with the rest of the country?
73.1% 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 SJC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.4%, 20 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 June delays on DFW to SJC?
June is the weakest month at 64.0% on time, compared with 79.8% in November. Across the year that is 16 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
- SJC to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International (SJC) delay statistics
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- SAN to SJC, a related route74.5%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- American Airlines on-time record73.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DFW to SJC and SJC 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.