Route reliability record
DTW→DFW
Detroit to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 3,482
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 986 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,482 DTW to DFW flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,406 at 77.4% on time.
Best time to fly DTW to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.6%, against 75.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,382 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
77.4% on time across 1,406 flights
These figures cover 3,482 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 DTW to DFW
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 14 | 92.9% | 136 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,406 | 77.4% | 57 min | 1.71% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,622 | 76.7% | 85 min | 2.59% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 153 | 74.5% | 58 min | 1.96% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 287 | 62.2% | 82 min | 3.14% | D− |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 77.4%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW 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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Dallas-Fort Worth
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → DFWDetroit to Dallas-Fort Worth | Delta Air Lines | 76.1% | 77.4% | 1.71% | 11am–2pm, Thu | DL 1041 12:20 |
| 2. DTW → DFWDetroit to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 74.7% | 76.7% | 2.59% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1108 05:37 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am521 flights85.7%
- 8am–11am531 flights79.8%
- 11am–2pm819 flights80.3%
- 2pm–5pm651 flights72.2%
- 5pm–8pm472 flights65.3%
- 8pm–5am488 flights68.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.7% of the time, against 65.3% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 819 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW 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 DTW to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.3%, a wide gap of 20.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.7%
- 8–11am79.8%
- 11am–2pm80.3%
- 2–5pm72.2%
- 5–8pm65.3%
- 8pm–5am68.3%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
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.
January is the weak month at 64.0% on time, against 84.5% in August. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 318 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 60,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 60,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 59,557 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 21,000 of the 60,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.24% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.63%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.4% 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 986 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 runs 76.3% on time across 3,482 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 3,482 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. August runs 84.5% on time and January 64.0%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 3,382 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to DFW questions
How often is DTW to DFW delayed?
About 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 24.2% of the 3,482 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to DFW?
Delta Air Lines leads at 77.4% on time across 1,406 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 76.7%, a gap of half a point. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.3%, 20 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 January delays on DTW to DFW?
January is the weakest month at 64.0% on time, compared with 84.5% in August. 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 DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to DFW77.4%
- American Airlines on DTW to DFW76.7%
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to DFW74.5%
- Frontier Airlines on DTW to DFW62.2%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record92.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.4%
- American Airlines on-time record76.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. DTW to DFW and DFW to DTW 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.