Carrier route record
AALAX→DFW
American Airlines · Los Angeles to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 4,528
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 73%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on LAX to DFW sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,528 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 757 at 85.4% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 85.4% on time across 757 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,398 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.23%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.9%
Every carrier on LAX to DFW, 6,178 flights
These figures cover 4,528 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on LAX to DFW
American flew 4,528 of the 6,178 flights on LAX to DFW, most of the route. Its 73.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 85.4% to Spirit at 70.8%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 85.4% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 70.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 383 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 757 | 85.4% | 75 min | 1.45% | A |
| American Airlines (this page) | 4,528 | 73.7% | 80 min | 2.23% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 510 | 72.6% | 88 min | 1.76% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 383 | 70.8% | 59 min | 4.18% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 4.2% 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 LAX to DFW
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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 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am672 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am910 flights75.6%
- 11am–2pm538 flights64.9%
- 2pm–5pm975 flights63.9%
- 5pm–8pm626 flights69.4%
- 8pm–5am807 flights81.5%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 63.9% for the afternoon 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 975 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on LAX to DFW through the year
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 64.1%. August is the strongest month at 82.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 18 points. July was the busiest month here, with 413 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.9% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.6%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on LAX to DFW runs when it is late
The 1,156 late arrivals split 385 under half an hour, 363 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 408 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early1,074 flights24.4%
- Within 15 min2,168 flights49.3%
- 15–29 min late385 flights8.8%
- 30–59 min late363 flights8.3%
- 1–2 hours late240 flights5.5%
- 2+ hours late168 flights3.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 4,398 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
222 of 1,169 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. 209 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on LAX to DFW
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 November 2025, 23 hours 59 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in January 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 November 2025 | 23 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 June 2026 | 21 hours 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 January 2026 | 21 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 26 January 2026 | 16 hours 7 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 January 2026 | 15 hours 52 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 92,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 92,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 to one. The split is drawn from 92,127 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 33,000 of the 92,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.23% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.64%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,235 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 70.2% on time across 4,536 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,528 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 LAX to DFW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 82.0% on time and November 64.1%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 4,398 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to LAX, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to DFW85.4%
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to DFW72.6%
- Spirit Airlines on LAX to DFW70.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.