Route reliability record
PBI→DFW
West Palm Beach to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,145
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,102 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 1,145 PBI to DFW flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly PBI to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 78.8%, against 70.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 70 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,103 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.23%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
70.6% on time across 1,145 flights
These figures cover 1,145 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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 PBI 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 | 1,145 | 70.6% | 83 min | 3.23% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on PBI 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly West Palm Beach 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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FLL → DFWFort Lauderdale to Dallas-Fort Worth | Spirit Airlines | 71.4% | 73.5% | 2.91% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. FLL → DFWFort Lauderdale to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 70.7% | 73.2% | 3.37% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1373 17:11 |
| 3. PBI → DFWWest Palm Beach to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 68.3% | 70.6% | 3.23% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 1220 07:00 |
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 30 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–8am364 flights89.8%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm155 flights68.9%
- 2pm–5pm329 flights59.6%
- 5pm–8pm297 flights60.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.8% of the time, against 59.6% for the afternoon window. That is 30 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am 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 30 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.
August is the worst month at 52.8% on time, 30 points below January, the best at 82.6%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 127 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.8%. 17 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 48% of the 27,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 27,000 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 27,013 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 89.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.23%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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. 12.1% 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 1,102 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 65.5% on time across 1,146 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,145 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.23% 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. 1,103 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PBI to DFW questions
How often is PBI 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 29.4% of the 1,145 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is PBI to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
70.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 7 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PBI to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 59.6%, 30 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 August delays on PBI to DFW?
August is the weakest month at 52.8% on time, compared with 82.6% in January. Across the year that is 30 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 PBI — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- PBI to ATL, a related route82.9%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- PBI to EWR, a related route74.5%
- American Airlines on-time record70.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PBI to DFW and DFW to PBI 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.