Route reliability record
DFW→SJU
Dallas-Fort Worth to San Juan
- Flights
- 971
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,165 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 971 DFW to SJU flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly DFW to SJU: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.8% of the time and Thursday flights 77.7%, against 70.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 72 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 941 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.99%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
69.4% on time across 703 flights
These figures cover 971 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% 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 SJU
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 76.9% | 112 min | 5.98% | B− |
| American Airlines | 703 | 69.4% | 61 min | 1.42% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 84 | 61.8% | 56 min | 9.52% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to SJU
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.
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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am91 flights80.5%
- 8am–11am315 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm5 flights—
- 2pm–5pm88 flights60.0%
- 5pm–8pm221 flights59.2%
- 8pm–5am251 flights61.0%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.2% on time, against 84.8% 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 315 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to SJU 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 SJU, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 84.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.2%, a wide gap of 25.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am80.5%
- 8–11am84.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm60.0%
- 5–8pm59.2%
- 8pm–5am61.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 41 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 48.3% on time, 41 points below September, the best at 89.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 113 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 77.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 65.5%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 18,913 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,437 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.99%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
11.2% 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.
At 2,165 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.3% on time across 975 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 971 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 SJU after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.99% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 941 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to SJU questions
How often is DFW to SJU 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 29.9% of the 971 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DFW to SJU compared with the rest of the country?
70.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 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 SJU?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.2%, 26 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 SJU?
June is the weakest month at 48.3% on time, compared with 89.7% in September. Across the year that is 41 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
- SJU to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Luis Munoz Marin International (SJU) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on DFW to SJU76.9%
- American Airlines on DFW to SJU69.4%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- MCO to SJU, a related route73.8%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record76.9%
- American Airlines on-time record69.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record61.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to SJU and SJU 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.