Route reliability record
HRL→DFW
Harlingen to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,495
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 461 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,495 HRL to DFW flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly HRL to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 89.0%, against 85.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 79 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,447 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.88%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
85.8% on time across 1,291 flights
These figures cover 1,495 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on HRL 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 Air | 1,291 | 85.8% | 81 min | 2.40% | A |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 204 | 83.2% | 127 min | 5.88% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on HRL 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Harlingen 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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. HRL → DFWHarlingen to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 83.7% | 85.8% | 2.40% | 5am–8am, Tue | MQ 3818 06:00 |
| 2. BRO → DFWBrownsville to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 83.7% | 85.9% | 2.53% | 5am–8am, Tue (route) | — |
| 3. MFE → DFWMcAllen to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 79.2% | 80.9% | 2.06% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 4. MFE → DFWMcAllen to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 74.4% | 77.1% | 3.55% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
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 10 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–8am365 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am328 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm81 flights87.3%
- 2pm–5pm322 flights80.7%
- 5pm–8pm217 flights81.1%
- 8pm–5am182 flights83.7%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.1% of the time, against 80.7% for the afternoon window. That is 10 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
July is the worst month at 75.8% on time, 19 points below February, the best at 94.5%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 144 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 80.3%. 9 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 45% of the 19,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 11%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% 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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 18,556 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.88%, against 1.81% 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
6.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 461 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 84.5% on time across 1,495 flights, within about 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 1,495 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 2.88% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,447 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HRL to DFW questions
How often is HRL to DFW delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.5% of the 1,495 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is HRL to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
85.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 8 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on HRL to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 80.7%, 10 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 July delays on HRL to DFW?
July is the weakest month at 75.8% on time, compared with 94.5% in February. Across the year that is 19 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 HRL — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on HRL to DFW85.8%
- PSA Airlines on HRL to DFW83.2%
- HRL to HOU, a related route80.3%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- LGA to DFW, a related route70.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record85.8%
- PSA Airlines on-time record83.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. HRL to DFW and DFW to HRL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed HRL to DFW’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.