Carrier route record
AAIAH→DFW
American Airlines · Houston to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,464
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on IAH to DFW carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 2,464 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 840 at 78.1% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on IAH to DFW runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,369 completed flights
Avg delay
121 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.65%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.0%
Every carrier on IAH to DFW, 5,779 flights
These figures cover 2,464 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.3% 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
American against every carrier on IAH to DFW
American flew 2,464 of the 5,779 flights on IAH to DFW, about 43% of it. Its 73.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 79.2% to PSA at 57.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 53 | 79.2% | 58 min | 9.43% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 840 | 78.1% | 100 min | 3.10% | B− |
| United Airlines | 2,415 | 75.7% | 74 min | 1.70% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,464 | 73.2% | 121 min | 3.65% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 57.1% | 428 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Envoy Air cancels 3.1% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on IAH to DFW
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 34 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am935 flights84.9%
- 8am–11am487 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm219 flights74.3%
- 2pm–5pm353 flights63.3%
- 5pm–8pm417 flights51.3%
- 8pm–5am53 flights67.9%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.3% on time, against 84.9% 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 935 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on IAH to DFW through the year
August is the worst month at 59.0% on time, 25 points below February, the best at 83.9%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 240 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.9%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 77,000 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
49% 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 77,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 76,507 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 84.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.65%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 14.3% 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.
At 224 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 59.7% on time across 2,465 flights, 14 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 14 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,464 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on IAH to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.65% 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. 2,369 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to IAH, the return leg
- Envoy Air on IAH to DFW78.1%
- United Airlines on IAH to DFW75.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.