Carrier route record

OHDSM→DFW

PSA Airlines · Des Moines to Dallas-Fort Worth

Flights: 145
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 10%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.

PSA on DSM to DFW sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 145 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate PSA on DSM to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 138 completed flights

Avg delay

103 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

4.14%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

72.5%

Every carrier on DSM to DFW, 1,436 flights

These figures cover 145 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% 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

PSA against every carrier on DSM to DFW

PSA flew 145 of the 1,436 flights on DSM to DFW, about 10% of it. Its 75.4% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 84.0% to American at 67.9%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on DSM to DFW
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 Airlines (this page)thin sample	145	75.4%	103 min	4.14%	B−
American Airlines	949	67.9%	105 min	4.95%	C−

Departure window

When PSA runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 145 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm84 flights72.8%
5pm–8pm61 flights78.9%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 78.9% on time. The full set of windows spans 6 points.

Across the year

PSA on DSM to DFW through the year

Jul–Sep 202521 flights—
Oct–Dec 20257 flights—
Jan–Mar 202675 flights73.6%
Apr–Jun 202642 flights80.0%

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 75.4% on time across 145 flights.

Split by quarter, PSA on DSM to DFW logged 21 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 7 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 75 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 42 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 75.4% annual figure is the one to use.

Delay causes

Why PSA runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 3,496 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.

Carrier
49%
Late-arriving aircraft
38%
National Airspace System
9%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
1%

38% 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 3,496 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 3,496 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,722 of the 3,496 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations run at 4.14%, 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.6% 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 81.7% on time across 145 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 145 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 PSA on DSM to DFW

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.14% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5pm–8pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 138 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures