Carrier route record
AAILM→DFW
American Airlines · Wilmington to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 595
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 83%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ILM to DFW lands a B−, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 595 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on ILM 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
79.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 566 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.03%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.7%
Every carrier on ILM to DFW, 718 flights
These figures cover 595 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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 ILM to DFW
American flew 595 of the 718 flights on ILM to DFW, most of the route. Its 79.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 85.2% to American at 79.7%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 123 | 85.2% | 58 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 595 | 79.7% | 77 min | 4.03% | B− |
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 23 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–8am300 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm6 flights—
- 2pm–5pm85 flights73.4%
- 5pm–8pm204 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.9% of the time, against 66.7% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 300 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on ILM to DFW through the year
December is the weak month at 70.0% on time, against 86.7% in May. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.1%. 18 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 69% of the 8,821 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.
- 69%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
69% 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 8,821 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 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 8,821 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 89.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.03%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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. 9.0% 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.
The 1,106 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 63.3% on time across 596 flights, 16 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 16 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 595 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 American on ILM to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.03% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 566 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.