Route reliability record
LEX→DFW
Lexington to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,216
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 785 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 1,216 LEX to DFW flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly LEX to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.0%, against 77.0% 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
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,181 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.38%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
76.3% on time across 584 flights
These figures cover 1,216 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 LEX 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 32 | 90.6% | 47 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 282 | 82.0% | 112 min | 4.26% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 584 | 76.3% | 59 min | 1.71% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 318 | 72.6% | 146 min | 2.20% | C |
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 29 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–8am486 flights87.4%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm99 flights78.4%
- 2pm–5pm322 flights72.9%
- 5pm–8pm268 flights64.9%
- 8pm–5am41 flights58.3%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.3% on time, against 87.4% 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 486 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 88.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 148 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.7%. 13 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 44% of the 26,000 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
- 35%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 5%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 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 25,887 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 9,177 of the 26,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.38% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.49%.
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. 9.4% 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.
The 785 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 74.7% on time across 1,216 flights, within 2 points 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 1,216 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.7% on time and November 65.5%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 1,181 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LEX to DFW questions
How often is LEX to DFW delayed?
Roughly 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 23.0% of the 1,216 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is LEX to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
77.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LEX to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.3%, 29 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 November delays on LEX to DFW?
November is the weakest month at 65.5% on time, compared with 88.7% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 LEX — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on LEX to DFW82.0%
- Envoy Air on LEX to DFW76.3%
- American Airlines on LEX to DFW72.6%
- LEX to ATL, a related route88.6%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- LEX to ORD, a related route71.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record90.6%
- PSA Airlines on-time record82.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record76.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. LEX to DFW and DFW to LEX 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.