Route reliability record
ORF→DFW
Norfolk to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 998
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,212 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 998 ORF to DFW flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly ORF to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.6% of the time and Friday flights 81.6%, against 71.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 58 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 956 completed flights
Avg delay
114 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.01%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
71.9% on time across 938 flights
These figures cover 998 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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 ORF 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 938 | 71.9% | 117 min | 3.20% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 69.2% | 66 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 21 | 68.4% | 70 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on ORF 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 26 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–8am363 flights83.6%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm41 flights74.4%
- 2pm–5pm364 flights68.7%
- 5pm–8pm230 flights57.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.5% on time, against 83.6% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 61.0% on time, 22 points below January, the best at 82.8%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 109 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Saturday the weakest at 61.8%. 20 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 49% of the 31,000 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.
- 49%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
36% 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 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 split is drawn from 30,712 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, 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 15,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.01%, against 1.81% 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. 10.6% 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 1,212 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 64.6% on time across 998 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. 998 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 3.01% 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. 956 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORF to DFW questions
How often is ORF to DFW delayed?
Roughly 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 28.2% of the 998 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is ORF to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
71.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORF to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.5%, 26 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 ORF to DFW?
July is the weakest month at 61.0% on time, compared with 82.8% in January. Across the year that is 22 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 ORF — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- ORF to ATL, a related route85.6%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- ORF to CLT, a related route82.4%
- American Airlines on-time record71.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record69.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record68.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORF to DFW and DFW to ORF are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ORF to DFW’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.