Carrier route record
AADSM→DFW
American Airlines · Des Moines to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 971
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 67%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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: 4.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 971 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on DSM to DFW runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 76 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 926 completed flights
Avg delay
105 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.3%
Every carrier on DSM to DFW, 1,440 flights
These figures cover 971 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.8% 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 DSM to DFW
American flew 971 of the 1,440 flights on DSM to DFW, most of the route. Its 69.7% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 88.4% to American at 69.7%. 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 | 299 | 88.4% | 67 min | 2.01% | A |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 10 | 80.0% | 78 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 160 | 75.7% | 97 min | 4.38% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 971 | 69.7% | 105 min | 4.02% | C− |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on DSM to DFW
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 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights84.7%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm187 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm243 flights51.1%
- 5pm–8pm175 flights55.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.7% of the time, against 51.1% for the afternoon window. That is 34 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
June is the worst month at 54.8% on time, 28 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 78.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 61.8%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on DSM to DFW runs when it is late
American on DSM to DFW often beats the schedule: 284 of 926 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When American on DSM to DFW is late it tends to be very late: 146 of its 281 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 83 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early284 flights30.7%
- Within 15 min361 flights39.0%
- 15–29 min late71 flights7.7%
- 30–59 min late64 flights6.9%
- 1–2 hours late63 flights6.8%
- 2+ hours late83 flights9.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 926 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
53 of 295 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 39 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on DSM to DFW
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 November 2025, 28 hours 23 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 November 2025 | 28 hours 23 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 June 2026 | 15 hours 21 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 March 2026 | 8 hours 28 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 December 2025 | 7 hours 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 December 2025 | 7 hours 10 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 72% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 72%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
72% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 29,387 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 84.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.02%, against 1.89% 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 costs
15.8% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 56.9% on time across 971 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 971 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 4.02% 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. 926 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 DFW88.4%
- PSA Airlines on DSM to DFW75.7%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.