Route reliability record
MIA→DFW
Miami to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 4,804
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,121 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,804 MIA to DFW flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly MIA to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.1%, against 75.1% 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
75.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,655 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.41%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
75.5% on time across 4,305 flights
These figures cover 4,804 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 MIA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 283 | 79.0% | 77 min | 2.47% | B |
| American Airlines | 4,305 | 75.5% | 79 min | 2.35% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 216 | 62.3% | 77 min | 3.70% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on MIA to DFW
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Miami 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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MIA → DFWMiami to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 73.7% | 75.5% | 2.35% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1226 05:00 |
| 2. FLL → DFWFort Lauderdale to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 72.0% | 74.0% | 2.66% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 3. FLL → DFWFort Lauderdale to Dallas-Fort Worth | Spirit Airlines | 68.2% | 70.7% | 3.50% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,126 flights87.6%
- 8am–11am718 flights80.5%
- 11am–2pm663 flights78.5%
- 2pm–5pm782 flights65.9%
- 5pm–8pm824 flights64.4%
- 8pm–5am691 flights68.4%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.4% on time, against 87.6% 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 1,126 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MIA 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 MIA to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.4%, a wide gap of 23.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.6%
- 8–11am80.5%
- 11am–2pm78.5%
- 2–5pm65.9%
- 5–8pm64.4%
- 8pm–5am68.4%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
July is the worst month at 68.9% on time, 13 points below February, the best at 82.0%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 435 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.3%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 92,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 92,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 91,522 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 87.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.41% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.69%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.0% 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.
The 1,121 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.3% on time across 4,804 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,804 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 82.0% on time and July 68.9%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,655 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MIA to DFW questions
How often is MIA 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 24.9% of the 4,804 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is MIA to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
75.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MIA to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.4%, 23 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 July delays on MIA to DFW?
July is the weakest month at 68.9% on time, compared with 82.0% in February. Across the year that is 13 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 MIA — the return legseparate record
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on MIA to DFW79.0%
- American Airlines on MIA to DFW75.5%
- Spirit Airlines on MIA to DFW62.3%
- MIA to ATL, a related route74.2%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- MIA to LGA, a related route67.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record79.0%
- American Airlines on-time record75.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record62.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. MIA to DFW and DFW to MIA 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.