Route reliability record
MKE→DFW
Milwaukee to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,084
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 853 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% 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 1,084 MKE to DFW flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly MKE to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 80.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.7%, against 73.9% 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
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,038 completed flights
Avg delay
109 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.78%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
73.8% on time across 1,075 flights
These figures cover 1,084 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 MKE 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 38 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,075 | 73.8% | 110 min | 3.81% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on MKE 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.
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 20 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–8am365 flights80.9%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm356 flights71.3%
- 2pm–5pm163 flights79.9%
- 5pm–8pm200 flights60.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.5% on time, against 80.9% 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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.
June is the worst month at 57.6% on time, 31 points below February, the best at 88.2%. 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 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 65.3%. 15 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 53% of the 30,000 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.
- 53%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, 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 30,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 29,637 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 80.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.78%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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. 10.4% 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 853 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.0% on time across 1,084 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,084 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 3.78% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two 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. 1,038 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MKE to DFW questions
How often is MKE 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 26.1% of the 1,084 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is MKE to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
73.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MKE to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 80.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.5%, 20 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 June delays on MKE to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 57.6% on time, compared with 88.2% in February. Across the year that is 31 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 MKE — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- MKE to ORD, a related route67.4%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- MKE to DEN, a related route78.1%
- PSA Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record75.0%
- American Airlines on-time record73.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. MKE to DFW and DFW to MKE 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.