Route reliability record
LAW→DFW
Lawton to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,072
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 140 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.7% 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 B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,072 LAW to DFW flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly LAW to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.8%, against 75.0% 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
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,010 completed flights
Avg delay
114 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.69%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
74.4% on time across 999 flights
These figures cover 1,072 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% 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 LAW to DFW
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 | 73 | 84.3% | 118 min | 4.11% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 999 | 74.4% | 114 min | 5.81% | C− |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Lawton 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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SPS → DFWWichita Falls to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 81.8% | 85.4% | 4.17% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | — |
| 2. LAW → DFWLawton to Dallas-Fort Worth | PSA Airlines | 70.1% | 74.4% | 5.81% | 5am–8am, Tue (route) | — |
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 20 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–8am365 flights84.1%
- 8am–11am349 flights76.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm358 flights64.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.4% on time, against 84.1% 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 59.8% on time, against 87.1% in June. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.8%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 29,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 16%Extreme weather
- 8%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 16% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 28,816 reported delay minutes.
45% 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 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 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.
Cancellations run at 5.69%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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. 12.4% 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 140 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 runs 72.1% on time across 1,072 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,072 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.
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 5.69% 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. 1,010 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAW to DFW questions
How often is LAW 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 25.0% of the 1,072 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is LAW to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
75.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAW to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.4%, 20 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 LAW to DFW?
December is the weakest month at 59.8% on time, compared with 87.1% in June. Across the year that is 27 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 LAW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- LGA to DFW, a related route70.8%
- ATL to DFW, a related route74.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record84.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record74.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LAW to DFW and DFW to LAW 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.