Carrier route record
AAMCI→DFW
American Airlines · Kansas City to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,994
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 79%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on MCI to DFW sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,994 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on MCI to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,923 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.16%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.5%
Every carrier on MCI to DFW, 2,537 flights
These figures cover 1,994 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 MCI to DFW
American flew 1,994 of the 2,537 flights on MCI to DFW, most of the route. Its 73.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 79.9% to PSA at 64.6%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 413 | 79.9% | 78 min | 0.73% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 17 | 78.6% | 231 min | 17.65% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,994 | 73.8% | 96 min | 3.16% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 113 | 64.6% | 69 min | 11.50% | D− |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on MCI to DFW
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 34 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–8am711 flights83.6%
- 8am–11am373 flights73.8%
- 11am–2pm260 flights77.4%
- 2pm–5pm280 flights68.8%
- 5pm–8pm268 flights49.8%
- 8pm–5am102 flights71.1%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.8% on time, against 83.6% 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 711 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on MCI to DFW through the year
July is the worst month at 54.3% on time, 34 points below February, the best at 88.1%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 210 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.2%. 14 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 48,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% 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 48,000 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 48,195 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 83.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.16%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.8% 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.
At 460 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 64.7% on time across 1,995 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,994 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 American on MCI to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.16% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,923 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCI to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to MCI, the return leg
- Envoy Air on MCI to DFW79.9%
- PSA Airlines on MCI to DFW64.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.