Route reliability record
ORD→DFW
Chicago to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 7,111
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 7,111 ORD to DFW flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,080 at 74.1% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 78.3%, against 70.4% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 74.1% on time across 2,080 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,865 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.69%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
74.1% on time across 2,080 flights
These figures cover 7,111 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.9% 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 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 | 8 | 87.5% | 22 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 12 | 75.0% | 65 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 2,080 | 74.1% | 75 min | 1.30% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 153 | 73.3% | 71 min | 3.92% | C− |
| American Airlines | 4,297 | 68.9% | 89 min | 3.16% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 465 | 68.5% | 83 min | 3.87% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 96 | 59.3% | 85 min | 4.17% | D− |
Frontier Airlines cancels 3.9% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD 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 Chicago 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. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MDW → DALChicago to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 74.6% | 76.1% | 1.95% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → DFWChicago to Dallas-Fort Worth | United Airlines | 73.1% | 74.1% | 1.30% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2290 12:45 |
| 3. ORD → DFWChicago to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 66.7% | 68.9% | 3.16% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2896 06:00 |
| 4. ORD → DFWChicago to Dallas-Fort Worth | Frontier Airlines | 65.8% | 68.5% | 3.87% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
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 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,214 flights82.9%
- 8am–11am1,679 flights73.9%
- 11am–2pm1,308 flights71.9%
- 2pm–5pm1,170 flights63.6%
- 5pm–8pm968 flights60.4%
- 8pm–5am772 flights62.9%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.4% on time, against 82.9% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,679 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 82.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 60.4%, a wide gap of 22.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am82.9%
- 8–11am73.9%
- 11am–2pm71.9%
- 2–5pm63.6%
- 5–8pm60.4%
- 8pm–5am62.9%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
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 62.8% 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. August was the busiest month here, with 696 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.4%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 171,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 23%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. Across 171,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 171,131 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 82.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.69%, 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
12.9% 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 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.
The return leg runs 68.8% on time across 7,115 flights, within 2 points 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 7,111 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 81.1% on time and June 62.8%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 6,865 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to DFW questions
How often is ORD to DFW delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.6% of the 7,111 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 74.1% on time across 2,080 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 68.5%, 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 82.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.4%, 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 June delays on ORD to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 62.8% 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
- United Airlines on ORD to DFW74.1%
- Envoy Air on ORD to DFW73.3%
- American Airlines on ORD to DFW68.9%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to DFW68.5%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to DFW, a related route73.9%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.0%
- United Airlines on-time record74.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.
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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.