Route reliability record

PHL→DFW

Philadelphia to Dallas-Fort Worth

Flights: 3,428
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 1,303 mi
Carriers: 3

This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 3,428 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,274 completed flights

Avg delay

91 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.68%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

American

77.9% on time across 3,162 flights

These figures cover 3,428 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% 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 PHL 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PHL to DFW
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	1	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
American Airlines	3,162	77.9%	92 min	3.67%	B−
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	265	69.3%	85 min	3.77%	C−

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 20 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–8am748 flights88.6%
8am–11am638 flights80.7%
11am–2pm553 flights76.6%
2pm–5pm589 flights69.9%
5pm–8pm620 flights71.2%
8pm–5am280 flights68.8%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.6% of the time, against 68.8% for the overnight window. That is 20 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 748 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.March best, July worst

July is the worst month at 64.4% on time, 22 points below March, the best at 86.2%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 331 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.4%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 68,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
41%
Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
18%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

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 68,000 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 split is drawn from 67,851 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, 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 28,000 of the 68,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations run at 3.68%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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. 9.1% 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 1,303 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 70.2% on time across 3,421 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.

The sample behind these figures is 3,428 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 3.68% 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. 3,274 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

PHL to DFW questions

How often is PHL to DFW delayed?

Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.7% of the 3,428 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.

How reliable is PHL to DFW compared with the rest of the country?

77.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.

What time of day has the fewest delays on PHL to DFW?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.8%, 20 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 PHL to DFW?

July is the weakest month at 64.4% on time, compared with 86.2% in March. 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.

Where to go next

Direction matters. PHL to DFW and DFW to PHL 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures