Route reliability record
ECP→DFW
Panama City to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,304
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 685 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,304 ECP to DFW flights, of which Envoy Air flew 744 at 82.4% on time.
Best time to fly ECP to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.1%, against 77.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,252 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.30%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
82.4% on time across 744 flights
These figures cover 1,304 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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 ECP to DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 82.4% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 73.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 454 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 744 | 82.4% | 74 min | 1.88% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 454 | 73.7% | 94 min | 5.51% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 106 | 54.0% | 196 min | 3.77% | F− |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Panama City to Dallas-Fort Worth
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ECP → DFWPanama City to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 80.9% | 82.4% | 1.88% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ECP → DFWPanama City to Dallas-Fort Worth | PSA Airlines | 69.6% | 73.7% | 5.51% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. VPS → DFWValparaiso to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 67.2% | 69.8% | 3.69% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2501 15:50 |
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 42 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am352 flights91.8%
- 8am–11am77 flights81.6%
- 11am–2pm332 flights84.5%
- 2pm–5pm361 flights68.9%
- 5pm–8pm182 flights49.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.7% on time, against 91.8% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 361 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
June is the worst month at 65.6% on time, 25 points below January, the best at 90.5%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 187 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 68.7%. 14 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 49% of the 29,000 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Extreme weather
- 13%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 29% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 4.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 29,009 reported delay minutes.
49% 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 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 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.
Cancellations run at 3.30%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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. 10.2% 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 685 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 runs 75.4% on time across 1,303 flights, within 2 points 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 1,304 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 3.30% 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. 1,252 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ECP to DFW questions
How often is ECP 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 22.8% of the 1,304 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ECP to DFW?
Envoy Air leads at 82.4% on time across 744 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 73.7%, a gap of 9 points. 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 ECP to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 49.7%, 42 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 June delays on ECP to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 65.6% on time, compared with 90.5% in January. Across the year that is 25 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 ECP — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ECP to DFW82.4%
- PSA Airlines on ECP to DFW73.7%
- American Airlines on ECP to DFW54.0%
- ECP to ATL, a related route86.2%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- ECP to CLT, a related route85.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record82.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record73.7%
- American Airlines on-time record54.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ECP to DFW and DFW to ECP 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.