Route reliability record
MFE→DFW
McAllen to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,445
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 469 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 2,445 MFE to DFW flights, of which Envoy Air flew 661 at 84.9% on time.
Best time to fly MFE to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.5% of the time and Friday flights 86.1%, against 80.5% 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
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,372 completed flights
Avg delay
120 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.70%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
84.9% on time across 661 flights
These figures cover 2,445 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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 MFE to DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 84.9% of the time; American Airlines manages 78.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,683 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 101 | 87.9% | 50 min | 1.98% | A |
| Envoy Air | 661 | 84.9% | 104 min | 1.51% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,683 | 78.3% | 127 min | 3.21% | B− |
American Airlines cancels 3.2% 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly McAllen 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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BRO → DFWBrownsville to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 85.9% | 88.0% | 2.36% | 5am–8am, Tue (route) | — |
| 2. HRL → DFWHarlingen to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 85.4% | 87.3% | 2.13% | 5am–8am, Tue | MQ 3818 06:00 |
| 3. MFE → DFWMcAllen to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 83.6% | 84.9% | 1.51% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
| 4. MFE → DFWMcAllen to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 75.8% | 78.3% | 3.21% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
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 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am720 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am446 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm427 flights78.5%
- 2pm–5pm284 flights72.8%
- 5pm–8pm462 flights73.0%
- 8pm–5am106 flights76.7%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.5% of the time, against 72.8% for the afternoon 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 720 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MFE 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 MFE to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.5% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 72.8%, a wide gap of 15.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.5%
- 8–11am83.2%
- 11am–2pm78.5%
- 2–5pm72.8%
- 5–8pm73.0%
- 8pm–5am76.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
Delays peak in April, when the on-time rate falls to 75.2%. February is the strongest month at 89.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 15 points. August was the busiest month here, with 225 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.3%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 55,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 13%Extreme weather
- 5%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 55,272 reported delay minutes.
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 55,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations run at 2.70%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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 actually costs
9.5% 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 469 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 70.0% on time across 2,445 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 2,445 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. February runs 89.8% on time and April 75.2%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of April before you think about anything else. 2,372 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MFE to DFW questions
How often is MFE to DFW delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.5% of the 2,445 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MFE to DFW?
Envoy Air leads at 84.9% on time across 661 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 78.3%, a gap of 7 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 MFE to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.8%, 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 April delays on MFE to DFW?
April is the weakest month at 75.2% on time, compared with 89.8% in February. Across the year that is 15 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 MFE — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on MFE to DFW87.9%
- Envoy Air on MFE to DFW84.9%
- American Airlines on MFE to DFW78.3%
- MFE to AUS, a related route87.1%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- MFE to IAH, a related route80.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record84.9%
- American Airlines on-time record78.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MFE to DFW and DFW to MFE 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.