Route reliability record
GRR→DFW
Grand Rapids to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 983
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 931 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 983 GRR to DFW flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly GRR to DFW: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 78.0% of the time and Thursday flights 78.8%, against 71.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 61 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 948 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.95%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
70.8% on time across 960 flights
These figures cover 983 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% 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 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 | 960 | 70.8% | 109 min | 2.71% | 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.
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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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am366 flights76.1%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm103 flights78.0%
- 2pm–5pm261 flights70.0%
- 5pm–8pm253 flights62.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.6% on time, against 78.0% for the 11am–2pm 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.
Explore
Filter GRR 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 GRR to DFW, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 78.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 62.6%, a wide gap of 15.4 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am76.1%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm78.0%
- 2–5pm70.0%
- 5–8pm62.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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 88.0% 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. August was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 78.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.3%, a spread of 14 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 30,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Extreme weather
- 11%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 18% 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 3.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 29,578 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 30,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.95%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
11.9% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.5% on time across 982 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 983 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 2.95% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 948 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GRR to DFW questions
How often is GRR to DFW delayed?
Roughly 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 28.8% of the 983 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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?
71.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 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 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 78.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.6%, 15 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 88.0% in August. Across the year that is 31 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 route69.1%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- GRR to DTW, a related route79.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record94.1%
- American Airlines on-time record70.8%
- PSA Airlines on-time record66.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.