Carrier route record
AADFW→SLC
American Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 2,203
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 57%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DFW to SLC draws a D. Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 2,203 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on DFW to SLC runs 16 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 156 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
61.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,135 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.68%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.1%
Every carrier on DFW to SLC, 3,872 flights
These figures cover 2,203 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DFW to SLC
American flew 2,203 of the 3,872 flights on DFW to SLC, most of the route. Its 61.7% on time is 9 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 71.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 84.8% to Envoy at 55.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 (this page) | 2,203 | 61.7% | 65 min | 2.68% | D |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 9 | 55.6% | 37 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on DFW to SLC
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
When American runs best on this route
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–8am—
- 8am–11am428 flights77.6%
- 11am–2pm557 flights65.8%
- 2pm–5pm200 flights55.2%
- 5pm–8pm492 flights57.0%
- 8pm–5am526 flights51.2%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.2% on time, against 77.6% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 557 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DFW to SLC through the year
July is the worst month at 47.5% on time, 23 points below February, the best at 70.7%. 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 206 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 71.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 57.8%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on DFW to SLC runs when it is late
The 817 late arrivals split 244 under half an hour, 273 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 300 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early259 flights12.1%
- Within 15 min1,059 flights49.6%
- 15–29 min late244 flights11.4%
- 30–59 min late273 flights12.8%
- 1–2 hours late197 flights9.2%
- 2+ hours late103 flights4.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 2,135 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
160 of 908 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 69 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on DFW to SLC
The latest arrival of the period was on 25 June 2026, 11 hours 7 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in June 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 25 June 2026 | 11 hours 7 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 25 June 2026 | 8 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 July 2026 | 8 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 April 2026 | 6 hours 39 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 13 June 2026 | 6 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 53,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 52,763 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 18,000 of the 53,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.68%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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 costs
14.1% 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 78.7% on time across 2,202 flights, 17 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 17 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,203 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on DFW to SLC
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 70.7% on time and July 47.5%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,135 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to SLC, every carrier
- American on SLC to DFW, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to SLC84.8%
- Delta Air Lines on DFW to SLC83.1%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.