Route reliability record
LIT→DFW
Little Rock to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,658
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 304 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 2,658 LIT to DFW flights, of which Envoy Air flew 1,748 at 79.5% on time.
Best time to fly LIT to DFW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.9%, against 76.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,590 completed flights
Avg delay
93 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.33%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
79.5% on time across 1,748 flights
These figures cover 2,658 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LIT to DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 79.5% of the time; American Airlines manages 68.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 426 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 1,748 | 79.5% | 87 min | 1.95% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 142 | 72.6% | 68 min | 4.93% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 342 | 72.4% | 107 min | 2.34% | C |
| American Airlines | 426 | 68.5% | 106 min | 3.05% | C− |
American Airlines cancels 3.0% 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
Flights on LIT to DFW
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Little Rock to Dallas-Fort Worth
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LIT → DALLittle Rock to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 82.2% | 83.0% | 0.96% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. LIT → DFWLittle Rock to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 77.9% | 79.5% | 1.95% | 8am–11am, Tue | MQ 3641 06:00 |
| 3. LIT → DFWLittle Rock to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 66.4% | 68.5% | 3.05% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 16 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am637 flights82.7%
- 8am–11am496 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm368 flights78.8%
- 2pm–5pm424 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm626 flights68.1%
- 8pm–5am107 flights67.6%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 83.8% of the time, against 67.6% for the overnight window. That is 16 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 637 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LIT to DFW by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On LIT to DFW, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 83.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 67.6%, a wide gap of 16.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am82.7%
- 8–11am83.8%
- 11am–2pm78.8%
- 2–5pm70.9%
- 5–8pm68.1%
- 8pm–5am67.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
June is the worst month at 68.4% on time, 16 points below January, the best at 84.6%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 255 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.3%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 57,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 23%Extreme weather
- 12%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 23% 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 3.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 56,744 reported delay minutes.
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 57,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 to one.
Cancellations sit at 2.33% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.6% 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.
At 304 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 78.2% on time across 2,657 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 2,658 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. January runs 84.6% on time and June 68.4%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,590 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LIT to DFW questions
How often is LIT to DFW delayed?
About 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 23.6% of the 2,658 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LIT to DFW?
Envoy Air leads at 79.5% on time across 1,748 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 68.5%, a gap of 11 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 LIT to DFW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.6%, 16 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 June delays on LIT to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 68.4% on time, compared with 84.6% in January. Across the year that is 16 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 LIT — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on LIT to DFW79.5%
- PSA Airlines on LIT to DFW72.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on LIT to DFW72.4%
- American Airlines on LIT to DFW68.5%
- LIT to ATL, a related route88.5%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- LIT to DEN, a related route80.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record79.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record72.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record72.4%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LIT to DFW and DFW to LIT 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.