Carrier route record
AALIT→DFW
American Airlines · Little Rock to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 426
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 16%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on LIT 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, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 426 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on LIT to DFW runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 88 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 413 completed flights
Avg delay
106 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.05%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.4%
Every carrier on LIT to DFW, 2,658 flights
These figures cover 426 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on LIT to DFW
American flew 426 of the 2,658 flights on LIT to DFW, about 16% of it. Its 68.5% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 79.5% to American at 68.5%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 (this page) | 426 | 68.5% | 106 min | 3.05% | C− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am263 flights79.9%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm43 flights52.4%
- 5pm–8pm120 flights49.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.6% on time, against 79.9% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 263 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on LIT to DFW through the year
Delays peak in April, when the on-time rate falls to 59.3%. January is the strongest month at 80.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 21 points. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 73.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.3%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on LIT to DFW runs when it is late
When American on LIT to DFW is late it tends to be very late: 66 of its 130 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 30 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early47 flights11.4%
- Within 15 min236 flights57.1%
- 15–29 min late33 flights8.0%
- 30–59 min late31 flights7.5%
- 1–2 hours late36 flights8.7%
- 2+ hours late30 flights7.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 413 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
26 of 137 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. 19 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on LIT to DFW
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 June 2026, 14 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 June 2026 | 14 hours 29 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 4 April 2026 | 14 hours 21 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 December 2025 | 11 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 April 2026 | 10 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 May 2026 | 7 hours 40 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why American 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 14,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 22% 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 3.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,765 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,811 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.05%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
16.0% 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 59.2% on time across 425 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 426 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 LIT to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.05% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 413 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LIT to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to LIT, the return leg
- Envoy Air on LIT to DFW79.5%
- PSA Airlines on LIT to DFW72.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on LIT to DFW72.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.