Route reliability record
GRR→DFW
Grand Rapids to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,017
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 931 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 1,017 GRR to DFW flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly GRR to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 73.7% of the time and Thursday flights 76.7%, against 68.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 94 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 973 completed flights
Avg delay
122 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.54%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
67.8% on time across 994 flights
These figures cover 1,017 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.6% 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
Which airline is most reliable on GRR to DFW
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 | 20 | 94.1% | 32 min | 15.00% | A− |
| American Airlines | 994 | 67.8% | 122 min | 3.32% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 66.7% | 40 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on GRR 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.
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 13 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–8am366 flights73.7%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm77 flights64.9%
- 2pm–5pm287 flights69.8%
- 5pm–8pm287 flights60.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.5% on time, against 73.7% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 366 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
December is the weak month at 57.1% on time, against 79.7% in November. 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 121 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 76.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 61.5%. 15 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. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 38,000 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.
- 44%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 15% 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 2.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 37,601 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, 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 17,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.54%, 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. 13.6% 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 931 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 66.1% on time across 1,016 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,017 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.
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 3.54% 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. 973 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GRR to DFW questions
How often is GRR to DFW delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 31.8% of the 1,017 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is GRR to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
68.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 9 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on GRR to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 73.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.5%, 13 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 December delays on GRR to DFW?
December is the weakest month at 57.1% on time, compared with 79.7% in November. Across the year that is 23 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 GRR — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- GRR to ORD, a related route68.3%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- GRR to DTW, a related route78.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record94.1%
- American Airlines on-time record67.8%
- PSA Airlines on-time record66.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. GRR to DFW and DFW to GRR 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.