Carrier route record
AADSM→DFW
American Airlines · Des Moines to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 949
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 66%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DSM to DFW carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 949 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on DSM to DFW runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 97 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 896 completed flights
Avg delay
105 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.5%
Every carrier on DSM to DFW, 1,436 flights
These figures cover 949 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.4% 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
American against every carrier on DSM to DFW
American flew 949 of the 1,436 flights on DSM to DFW, most of the route. Its 67.9% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 84.0% to American at 67.9%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 (this page) | 949 | 67.9% | 105 min | 4.95% | C− |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on DSM to DFW
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 33 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–8am365 flights81.9%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm187 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm217 flights48.5%
- 5pm–8pm179 flights52.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 81.9% of the time, against 48.5% for the afternoon window. That is 33 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DSM to DFW through the year
July is the worst month at 43.3% on time, 40 points below April, the best at 82.8%. 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 113 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 61.5%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 67% of the 30,000 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.
- 67%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
67% 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 30,000 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 30,217 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 81.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.95%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 16.4% 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 57.2% on time across 949 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 949 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on DSM to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.95% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 896 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DSM to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to DSM, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DSM to DFW84.0%
- PSA Airlines on DSM to DFW75.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.