Carrier route record
DLLGA→DFW
Delta Air Lines · New York to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,851
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on LGA to DFW carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,851 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Delta on LGA to DFW runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 75 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,745 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.97%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
70.1%
Every carrier on LGA to DFW, 6,646 flights
These figures cover 1,851 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on LGA to DFW
Delta flew 1,851 of the 6,646 flights on LGA to DFW, about 28% of it. Its 69.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 70.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 71.2% to Frontier at 59.3%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 4,309 | 71.2% | 93 min | 4.92% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,851 | 69.8% | 73 min | 4.97% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 195 | 66.5% | 78 min | 8.21% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 291 | 59.3% | 108 min | 7.22% | D− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on LGA to DFW
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Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 33 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am287 flights87.9%
- 8am–11am349 flights75.6%
- 11am–2pm447 flights71.9%
- 2pm–5pm336 flights64.0%
- 5pm–8pm338 flights55.8%
- 8pm–5am94 flights54.9%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.9% on time, against 87.9% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 447 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on LGA to DFW through the year
December is the weak month at 56.0% on time, against 81.2% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 197 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 74.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 64.3%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on LGA to DFW runs when it is late
Delta on LGA to DFW often beats the schedule: 603 of 1,745 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 527 late arrivals split 160 under half an hour, 146 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 221 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early603 flights34.6%
- Within 15 min615 flights35.2%
- 15–29 min late160 flights9.2%
- 30–59 min late146 flights8.4%
- 1–2 hours late137 flights7.9%
- 2+ hours late84 flights4.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,745 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
74 of 421 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. In the other direction, 180 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DFW.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on LGA to DFW
The latest arrival of the period was on 19 September 2025, 10 hours 4 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 19 September 2025 | 10 hours 4 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 17 November 2025 | 9 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 May 2026 | 8 hours 16 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 27 August 2026 | 7 hours 29 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 17 November 2025 | 7 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 38,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 33%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 38,290 reported delay minutes.
33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 13,000 minutes out of 38,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.97%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
12.7% 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 1,389 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 runs 72.5% on time across 1,851 flights, within 3 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 1,851 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 Delta on LGA to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.97% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,745 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to DFW, every carrier
- Delta on DFW to LGA, the return leg
- American Airlines on LGA to DFW71.2%
- Spirit Airlines on LGA to DFW66.5%
- Frontier Airlines on LGA to DFW59.3%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.