Route reliability record
LBB→DFW
Lubbock to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,628
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 282 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,628 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 1,503 at 84.3% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,549 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.70%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
84.3% on time across 1,503 flights
These figures cover 2,628 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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 LBB to DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 84.3% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 77.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 438 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 351 | 85.7% | 136 min | 4.56% | A− |
| Envoy Air | 1,503 | 84.3% | 93 min | 1.20% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 438 | 77.3% | 90 min | 4.11% | B− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 336 | 76.8% | 125 min | 5.65% | B− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 4.1% 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.
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 15 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am741 flights88.1%
- 8am–11am549 flights85.8%
- 11am–2pm360 flights82.0%
- 2pm–5pm463 flights77.9%
- 5pm–8pm378 flights73.5%
- 8pm–5am137 flights78.2%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.1% of the time, against 73.5% for the evening window. That is 15 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 741 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
August is the worst month at 72.7% on time, 15 points below October, the best at 87.6%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 265 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.7%. 6 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 46,000 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
- 24%Carrier
- 16%Extreme weather
- 15%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 2.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 45,664 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 46,000 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 2.70%, 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 actually costs
8.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the close to two hours kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 282 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.3% on time across 2,628 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,628 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 this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 87.6% on time and August 72.7%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,549 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LBB to DFW questions
How often is LBB to DFW delayed?
About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.6% of the 2,628 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LBB to DFW?
Envoy Air leads at 84.3% on time across 1,503 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 77.3%, a gap of 7 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 LBB to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.5%, 15 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 August delays on LBB to DFW?
August is the weakest month at 72.7% on time, compared with 87.6% in October. Across the year that is 15 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 LBB — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- American Airlines on-time record85.7%
- Envoy Air on-time record84.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. LBB to DFW and DFW to LBB are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.