Carrier route record

AALEX→DFW

American Airlines · Lexington to Dallas-Fort Worth

Flights: 318
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 26%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on LEX 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 about 2.4 hours behind schedule. That rests on 318 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on LEX to DFW runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 50 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 310 completed flights

Avg delay

146 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.20%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.0%

Every carrier on LEX to DFW, 1,216 flights

These figures cover 318 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.2% 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 LEX to DFW

American flew 318 of the 1,216 flights on LEX to DFW, about 26% of it. Its 72.6% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 90.6% to American at 72.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on LEX to DFW
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 Airlines (this page)thin sample	318	72.6%	146 min	2.20%	C

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 18 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–8am156 flights82.0%
8am–11am—
11am–2pm6 flights—
2pm–5pm156 flights63.6%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 82.0% of the time, against 63.6% for the afternoon window. That is 18 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 156 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on LEX to DFW through the year

Oct–Dec 2025113 flights67.0%
Jan–Mar 2026142 flights81.5%
Apr–Jun 202663 flights63.5%

Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 72.6% on time across 318 flights.

American on LEX to DFW did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 81.5% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 63.5%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 106 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 60.0%. 22 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. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 12,000 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.

Carrier
47%
Late-arriving aircraft
40%
National Airspace System
9%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

40% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 12,387 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, 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 5,838 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 2.20% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.31%.

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. 14.2% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 64.8% on time across 318 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 318 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.

What to do with this

Booking American on LEX to DFW

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 318 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 72.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 310 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures