Route reliability record
MGM→DFW
Montgomery to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,062
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 622 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.5% 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 1,062 MGM to DFW flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly MGM to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 78.9% of the time and Thursday flights 85.1%, against 74.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 998 completed flights
Avg delay
151 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
74.3% on time across 769 flights
These figures cover 1,062 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.4% 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
Which airline is most reliable on MGM to DFW
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 Airthin sample | 231 | 75.3% | 71 min | 2.16% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 62 | 75.0% | 67 min | 3.23% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 769 | 74.3% | 181 min | 6.63% | C− |
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 10 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–8am358 flights78.9%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm345 flights75.4%
- 2pm–5pm16 flights—
- 5pm–8pm343 flights68.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 78.9% of the time, against 68.5% for the evening window. That is 10 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 358 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
December is the weak month at 64.4% on time, against 85.7% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.6%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 48% of the 38,000 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.
- 48%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
36% 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 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 38,278 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, 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 18,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 5.46%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.4% 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.
The 622 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 74.6% on time across 1,062 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,062 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DFW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.46% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.5 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. 998 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MGM to DFW questions
How often is MGM 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 25.5% of the 1,062 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.5 hours on average.
How reliable is MGM to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
74.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MGM to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 78.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.5%, 10 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 December delays on MGM to DFW?
December is the weakest month at 64.4% on time, compared with 85.7% in April. Across the year that is 21 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 MGM — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on MGM to DFW75.3%
- PSA Airlines on MGM to DFW74.3%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- LGA to DFW, a related route70.8%
- ATL to DFW, a related route74.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record75.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record75.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record74.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MGM to DFW and DFW to MGM 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.