Carrier route record
AALAX→DFW
American Airlines · Los Angeles to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 4,563
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 73%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 4,563 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 718 at 83.6% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 83.6% on time across 718 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,415 completed flights
Avg delay
93 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.52%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.2%
Every carrier on LAX to DFW, 6,231 flights
These figures cover 4,563 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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 LAX to DFW
American flew 4,563 of the 6,231 flights on LAX to DFW, most of the route. Its 72.7% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.6% to American at 72.7%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 83.6% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 74.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 503 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 718 | 83.6% | 80 min | 1.81% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 447 | 74.1% | 94 min | 1.57% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 503 | 74.0% | 63 min | 3.38% | C− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 4,563 | 72.7% | 93 min | 2.52% | C |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.4% 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
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 22 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am671 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am911 flights72.8%
- 11am–2pm614 flights62.8%
- 2pm–5pm957 flights62.0%
- 5pm–8pm572 flights72.8%
- 8pm–5am838 flights82.7%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.0% of the time, against 62.0% for the afternoon 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 957 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on LAX to DFW through the year
July is the worst month at 64.0% on time, 17 points below April, the best at 80.6%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 408 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 67.2%. 11 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 44% of the 112,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 42%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% 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 112,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 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 112,355 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 47,000 of the 112,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.52%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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. 9.9% 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 1,235 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. 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 68.3% on time across 4,568 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 4,563 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. April runs 80.6% on time and July 64.0%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,415 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 DFW83.6%
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to DFW74.1%
- Spirit Airlines on LAX to DFW74.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) 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.