Route reliability record
ORD→DFW
Chicago to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 6,925
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 802 mi
- Carriers
- 7
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 6,925 flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,985 at 73.4% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 73.4% on time across 1,985 flights.
Key figures
On time
69.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,677 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.93%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
United
73.4% on time across 1,985 flights
These figures cover 6,925 flights between June 2025 and May 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 ORD to DFW
The three carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 12 | 75.0% | 65 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 1,985 | 73.4% | 71 min | 1.21% | C |
| American Airlines | 4,225 | 68.4% | 95 min | 3.69% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 130 | 68.3% | 64 min | 2.31% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 429 | 67.9% | 87 min | 3.73% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 142 | 64.0% | 76 min | 2.82% | D |
Frontier Airlines cancels 3.7% 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.
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 22 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,154 flights82.8%
- 8am–11am1,589 flights71.5%
- 11am–2pm1,207 flights72.9%
- 2pm–5pm1,110 flights63.6%
- 5pm–8pm1,009 flights62.7%
- 8pm–5am856 flights60.4%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.4% on time, against 82.8% 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.
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.
June is the worst month at 63.1% on time, 18 points below February, the best at 81.1%. 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.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.6%. 12 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 176,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% 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 176,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 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 82.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.93%, against 1.80% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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 8.2% 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 802 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 68.4% on time across 6,933 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 6,925 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.93% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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.
Common questions
ORD to DFW questions
How often is ORD to DFW delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.2% of the 6,925 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to DFW?
United Airlines leads at 73.4% on time across 1,985 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 67.9%, a gap of 6 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 ORD to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 82.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.4%, 22 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 ORD to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 63.1% on time, compared with 81.1% in February. 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.0%
- United Airlines on-time record73.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. ORD to DFW and DFW to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.