Route reliability record
MLI→DFW
Moline to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,013
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 691 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 1,013 MLI to DFW flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Best time to fly MLI to DFW: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 94.2%, against 84.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 72 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 982 completed flights
Avg delay
103 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.67%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
88.2% on time across 662 flights
These figures cover 1,013 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MLI 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 Air | 662 | 88.2% | 74 min | 1.96% | A |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 58 | 82.5% | 104 min | 1.72% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 293 | 76.3% | 136 min | 4.44% | B− |
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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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am361 flights87.3%
- 8am–11am29 flights—
- 11am–2pm263 flights89.0%
- 2pm–5pm299 flights77.4%
- 5pm–8pm61 flights76.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 89.0% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 76.3%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 361 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MLI 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 MLI to DFW, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 89.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 76.3%, a wide gap of 12.7 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am87.3%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm89.0%
- 2–5pm77.4%
- 5–8pm76.3%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 73.9% on time, against 92.3% in July. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 94.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.1%, 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 16,000 reported delay minutes.
- 33%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Extreme weather
- 17%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 19% 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 3.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 15,639 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.67%, 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
6.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 691 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 runs 84.7% on time across 1,015 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. 1,013 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: treat all of this as provisional. 1,013 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 84.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 982 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MLI to DFW questions
How often is MLI to DFW delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.5% of the 1,013 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is MLI to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
84.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MLI to DFW?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 89.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.3%, 13 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 MLI to DFW?
December is the weakest month at 73.9% on time, compared with 92.3% in July. Across the year that is 18 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 MLI — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on MLI to DFW88.2%
- PSA Airlines on MLI to DFW76.3%
- MLI to ORD, a related route72.1%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- ATL to DFW, a related route73.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record88.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record76.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. MLI to DFW and DFW to MLI 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.