Route reliability record
IAD→DFW
Washington to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,961
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,172 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,961 IAD to DFW flights, of which United Airlines flew 928 at 80.0% on time.
Best time to fly IAD to DFW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.4%, against 76.7% 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
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,914 completed flights
Avg delay
106 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.63%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
80.0% on time across 928 flights
These figures cover 1,961 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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 IAD to DFW
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 points 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 928 | 80.0% | 81 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 849 | 74.4% | 114 min | 2.47% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 175 | 70.8% | 164 min | 3.43% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 9 | 66.7% | 69 min | 0.00% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 80.0%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on IAD 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 Washington 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 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → DFWWashington to Dallas-Fort Worth | United Airlines | 79.6% | 80.0% | 0.54% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 2116 18:00 |
| 2. DCA → DFWWashington to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 76.6% | 78.8% | 2.85% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1978 07:45 |
| 3. BWI → DALBaltimore to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 74.2% | 75.8% | 2.06% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. IAD → DFWWashington to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 72.6% | 74.4% | 2.47% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2617 06:00 |
| 5. BWI → DFWBaltimore to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 71.5% | 73.7% | 3.00% | 5am–8am, Thu | AA 1403 06:00 |
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 23 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am363 flights83.6%
- 8am–11am283 flights88.4%
- 11am–2pm501 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm53 flights68.6%
- 5pm–8pm735 flights65.5%
- 8pm–5am26 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.4% of the time, against 65.5% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 735 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAD 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 IAD to DFW, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 88.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.5%, a wide gap of 22.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am83.6%
- 8–11am88.4%
- 11am–2pm82.8%
- 2–5pm68.6%
- 5–8pm65.5%
- 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 20 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 66.7% on time, 20 points below January, the best at 86.2%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 196 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.6%, a spread of 8 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 47,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 47,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 47,195 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 19,000 of the 47,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.76%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.2% 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 1,172 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 77.4% on time across 1,962 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 1,961 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. January runs 86.2% on time and June 66.7%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,914 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAD to DFW questions
How often is IAD 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 23.3% of the 1,961 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on IAD to DFW?
United Airlines leads at 80.0% on time across 928 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 74.4%, a gap of 6 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 IAD to DFW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.5%, 23 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 IAD to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 86.2% in January. Across the year that is 20 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 IAD — the return legseparate record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- United Airlines on IAD to DFW80.0%
- American Airlines on IAD to DFW74.4%
- Frontier Airlines on IAD to DFW70.8%
- IAD to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- IAD to DEN, a related route83.1%
- United Airlines on-time record80.0%
- American Airlines on-time record74.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record70.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. IAD to DFW and DFW to IAD 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.