Carrier route record
UAIAD→DFW
United Airlines · Washington to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 928
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 47%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on IAD to DFW lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 928 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on IAD to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 913 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.7%
Every carrier on IAD to DFW, 1,961 flights
These figures cover 928 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on IAD to DFW
United flew 928 of the 1,961 flights on IAD to DFW, about 47% of it. Its 80.0% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.0% to Republic at 66.7%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 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+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on IAD to DFW
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am233 flights88.6%
- 11am–2pm342 flights84.3%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm350 flights70.1%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.6% of the time, against 70.1% for the evening window. That is 19 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 350 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on IAD to DFW through the year
June is the worst month at 67.1% on time, 20 points below February, the best at 87.0%. 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 88 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.9%, a spread of 8 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on IAD to DFW runs when it is late
United on IAD to DFW often beats the schedule: 337 of 913 completed flights, 37%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 183 late arrivals split 57 under half an hour, 46 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 80 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early337 flights36.9%
- Within 15 min393 flights43.0%
- 15–29 min late57 flights6.2%
- 30–59 min late46 flights5.0%
- 1–2 hours late42 flights4.6%
- 2+ hours late38 flights4.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 913 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
29 of 153 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. In the other direction, 59 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DFW.
The worst days
Worst days for United on IAD to DFW
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 January 2026, 10 hours 26 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 January 2026 | 10 hours 26 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 21 June 2026 | 9 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 November 2025 | 5 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 February 2026 | 4 hours 46 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 February 2026 | 4 hours 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
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 15,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 14,888 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.6% on time across 929 flights, 4 points above 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. 928 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on IAD to DFW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 928 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 913 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAD to DFW, every carrier
- United on DFW to IAD, the return leg
- American Airlines on IAD to DFW74.4%
- Frontier Airlines on IAD to DFW70.8%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.