Route reliability record
DFW→SLC
Dallas-Fort Worth to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 3,872
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 989 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,872 DFW to SLC flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,459 at 83.1% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to SLC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 76.7%, against 71.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 62 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,779 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.17%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.1% on time across 1,459 flights
These figures cover 3,872 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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 SLC
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 83.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 61.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,203 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 201 | 84.8% | 70 min | 1.99% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,459 | 83.1% | 87 min | 1.44% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,203 | 61.7% | 65 min | 2.68% | D |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 9 | 55.6% | 37 min | 0.00% | D+ |
The spread between Delta and American is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to SLC
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Salt Lake City
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. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → SLCDallas-Fort Worth to Salt Lake City | Delta Air Lines | 81.9% | 83.1% | 1.44% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 1291 08:10 |
| 2. DFW → PVUDallas-Fort Worth to Provo | SkyWest Airlines | 74.9% | 76.2% | 1.76% | 11am–2pm, Tue (route) | — |
| 3. DFW → SLCDallas-Fort Worth to Salt Lake City | American Airlines | 60.0% | 61.7% | 2.68% | 8am–11am, Tue | AA 1456 13:20 |
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 35 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am115 flights86.6%
- 8am–11am731 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm950 flights73.6%
- 2pm–5pm621 flights74.8%
- 5pm–8pm928 flights65.5%
- 8pm–5am527 flights51.1%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.1% on time, against 86.6% for the 5am–8am 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 950 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to SLC 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 SLC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 51.1%, a wide gap of 35.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.6%
- 8–11am83.3%
- 11am–2pm73.6%
- 2–5pm74.8%
- 5–8pm65.5%
- 8pm–5am51.1%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
July is the worst month at 60.4% on time, 17 points below February, the best at 77.7%. 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 358 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.3%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 76,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 76,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 76,072 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 29,000 of the 76,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.17% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.6% 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 989 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 79.8% on time across 3,870 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,872 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 SLC 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. February runs 77.7% on time and July 60.4%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,779 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to SLC questions
How often is DFW to SLC 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 28.9% of the 3,872 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to SLC?
Delta Air Lines leads at 83.1% on time across 1,459 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 61.7%, a gap of 21 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 SLC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 51.1%, 35 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 July delays on DFW to SLC?
July is the weakest month at 60.4% on time, compared with 77.7% in February. Across the year that is 17 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
- SLC to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to SLC84.8%
- Delta Air Lines on DFW to SLC83.1%
- American Airlines on DFW to SLC61.7%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record84.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.1%
- American Airlines on-time record61.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DFW to SLC and SLC 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.