Carrier route record
AAMEM→DFW
American Airlines · Memphis to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,528
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 64%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on MEM to DFW carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 1,528 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on MEM to DFW runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 41 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,473 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.53%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.0%
Every carrier on MEM to DFW, 2,390 flights
These figures cover 1,528 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 MEM to DFW
American flew 1,528 of the 2,390 flights on MEM to DFW, most of the route. Its 73.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 74.7% to Envoy at 71.7%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 162 | 74.7% | 130 min | 2.47% | C |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,528 | 73.5% | 96 min | 3.53% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 72.2% | 75 min | 5.13% | C− |
| Envoy Air | 661 | 71.7% | 80 min | 2.57% | C |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on MEM 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 25 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–8am688 flights82.6%
- 8am–11am155 flights78.4%
- 11am–2pm311 flights61.5%
- 2pm–5pm156 flights68.9%
- 5pm–8pm139 flights57.7%
- 8pm–5am79 flights67.1%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.7% on time, against 82.6% 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 688 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on MEM to DFW through the year
July is the worst month at 54.7% on time, 32 points below September, the best at 86.3%. 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 157 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.6%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 37,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 12%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 12% 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 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 37,467 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 16,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.53%, 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. 10.0% 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 431 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 62.3% on time across 1,529 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,528 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 MEM to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.53% 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. 1,473 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MEM to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to MEM, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on MEM to DFW74.7%
- Envoy Air on MEM to DFW71.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.