Route reliability record
DSM→DFW
Des Moines to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,436
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 624 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,436 DSM to DFW flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly DSM to DFW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.2%, against 72.5% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 51 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,369 completed flights
Avg delay
100 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.11%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
67.9% on time across 949 flights
These figures cover 1,436 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DSM 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 332 | 84.0% | 74 min | 1.81% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 10 | 80.0% | 78 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 145 | 75.4% | 103 min | 4.14% | B− |
| American Airlines | 949 | 67.9% | 105 min | 4.95% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on DSM 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.
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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am367 flights82.1%
- 8am–11am161 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm198 flights77.4%
- 2pm–5pm358 flights58.5%
- 5pm–8pm352 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.6% of the time, against 58.5% for the afternoon window. That is 29 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 367 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 60.7% on time, 21 points below May, the best at 82.1%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 123 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 66.7%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 64% of the 38,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 64%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
64% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 37,691 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.11%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 624 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 66.5% on time across 1,434 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,436 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 delay figures matter less here than the 4.11% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 1,369 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DSM to DFW questions
How often is DSM to DFW delayed?
Roughly 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 27.5% of the 1,436 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is DSM to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
72.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DSM to DFW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 58.5%, 29 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 DSM to DFW?
July is the weakest month at 60.7% on time, compared with 82.1% in May. Across the year that is 21 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 DSM — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DSM to DFW84.0%
- PSA Airlines on DSM to DFW75.4%
- American Airlines on DSM to DFW67.9%
- DSM to ORD, a related route73.1%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- DSM to DEN, a related route83.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record84.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record75.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DSM to DFW and DFW to DSM 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.