Route reliability record
DRO→DFW
Durango to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,351
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 674 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,351 DRO to DFW flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Best time to fly DRO to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.9%, against 81.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 40 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,312 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.29%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
82.9% on time across 1,178 flights
These figures cover 1,351 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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 DRO to DFW
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,178 | 82.9% | 94 min | 2.55% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 173 | 70.8% | 82 min | 0.58% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DRO to DFW
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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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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am378 flights90.4%
- 8am–11am285 flights85.1%
- 11am–2pm330 flights77.3%
- 2pm–5pm188 flights74.6%
- 5pm–8pm170 flights69.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.4% of the time, against 69.2% for the evening window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 378 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DRO to DFW 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 DRO to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.2%, a wide gap of 21.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.4%
- 8–11am85.1%
- 11am–2pm77.3%
- 2–5pm74.6%
- 5–8pm69.2%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
Delays peak in September, when the on-time rate falls to 65.2%. December is the strongest month at 88.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 23 points. July was the busiest month here, with 158 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 76.3%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 22,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%Extreme weather
- 5%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 11% 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 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 22,372 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 22,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.29% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.59%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 674 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 76.7% on time across 1,351 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,351 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 DFW 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. December runs 88.5% on time and September 65.2%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of September before you think about anything else. 1,312 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DRO to DFW questions
How often is DRO to DFW delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.7% of the 1,351 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DRO to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
81.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DRO to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.2%, 21 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 September delays on DRO to DFW?
September is the weakest month at 65.2% on time, compared with 88.5% in December. Across the year that is 23 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
- DFW to DRO — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DRO to DFW82.9%
- American Airlines on DRO to DFW70.8%
- DRO to DEN, a related route82.5%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- DRO to PHX, a related route76.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.9%
- American Airlines on-time record70.8%
- 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. DRO to DFW and DFW to DRO 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.