Route reliability record
PHL→DFW
Philadelphia to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 3,479
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,303 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five 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 3,479 PHL to DFW flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHL to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.8%, against 78.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,336 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.39%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
79.2% on time across 3,189 flights
These figures cover 3,479 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 3,189 | 79.2% | 93 min | 3.39% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 290 | 66.5% | 85 min | 3.45% | C− |
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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 half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am747 flights89.8%
- 8am–11am632 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm614 flights76.7%
- 2pm–5pm631 flights71.0%
- 5pm–8pm558 flights73.2%
- 8pm–5am297 flights67.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.8% of the time, against 67.7% for the overnight window. That is 22 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 747 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHL 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 PHL to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 67.7%, a wide gap of 22.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.8%
- 8–11am81.7%
- 11am–2pm76.7%
- 2–5pm71.0%
- 5–8pm73.2%
- 8pm–5am67.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
December is the weak month at 65.4% on time, against 86.2% in March. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 340 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.0%, a spread of 15 points.
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 67,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 67,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 66,912 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 27,000 of the 67,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.39%, against 1.89% 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
9.0% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.4% on time across 3,477 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 3,479 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 3.39% 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. 3,336 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 five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.9% of the 3,479 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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?
78.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point in its favour. 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 89.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.7%, 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 December delays on PHL to DFW?
December is the weakest month at 65.4% on time, compared with 86.2% in March. Across the year that is 21 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 PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHL to DFW79.2%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to DFW66.5%
- PHL to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record79.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record66.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.
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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.