Route reliability record
JFK→DFW
New York to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,014
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,391 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,014 JFK to DFW flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,409 at 77.6% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.8%, against 76.3% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
76.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,939 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
77.6% on time across 1,409 flights
These figures cover 2,014 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 77.6% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 71.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 434 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,409 | 77.6% | 87 min | 2.56% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 171 | 77.5% | 68 min | 1.17% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 434 | 71.2% | 97 min | 4.84% | C− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 4.8% 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
Flights on JFK 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 New York 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → DFWNewark to Dallas-Fort Worth | United Airlines | 78.5% | 80.6% | 2.62% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 454 09:00 |
| 2. EWR → DFWNewark to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 76.8% | 80.1% | 4.18% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2728 06:00 |
| 3. JFK → DFWNew York to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 75.6% | 77.6% | 2.56% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1766 14:30 |
| 4. LGA → DALNew York to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 70.5% | 73.0% | 3.43% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. LGA → DFWNew York to Dallas-Fort Worth | Delta Air Lines | 67.9% | 71.0% | 4.35% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 873 09:15 |
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 22 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am87 flights90.5%
- 8am–11am394 flights84.2%
- 11am–2pm438 flights78.5%
- 2pm–5pm459 flights75.5%
- 5pm–8pm636 flights68.3%
- 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 90.5% of the time, against 68.3% for the evening window. That is 22 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 636 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
December is the weak month at 68.3% on time, against 85.0% in February. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 217 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.3%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 40,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% 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 40,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 40,438 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 14,000 of the 40,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.93%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.7% 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 1,391 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 runs 77.0% on time across 2,009 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 2,014 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 2.93% 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. 1,939 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to DFW questions
How often is JFK 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 23.7% of the 2,014 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to DFW?
American Airlines leads at 77.6% on time across 1,409 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 71.2%, 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 JFK to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.3%, 22 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 December delays on JFK to DFW?
December is the weakest month at 68.3% on time, compared with 85.0% in February. Across the year that is 17 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- American Airlines on JFK to DFW77.6%
- Frontier Airlines on JFK to DFW77.5%
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to DFW71.2%
- JFK to LAX, a related route77.6%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- JFK to SFO, a related route74.1%
- American Airlines on-time record77.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record71.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to DFW and DFW to JFK 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.