Carrier route record
AAPHL→DFW
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 3,162
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 92%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to DFW 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 3,162 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHL to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,019 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.67%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.3%
Every carrier on PHL to DFW, 3,428 flights
These figures cover 3,162 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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
American against every carrier on PHL to DFW
American flew 3,162 of the 3,428 flights on PHL to DFW, most of the route. Its 77.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 100.0% to Frontier at 69.3%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 3,162 | 77.9% | 92 min | 3.67% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 265 | 69.3% | 85 min | 3.77% | C− |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 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–8am697 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am557 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm517 flights76.4%
- 2pm–5pm536 flights71.2%
- 5pm–8pm593 flights72.4%
- 8pm–5am262 flights69.8%
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 88.8% of the time, against 69.8% for the overnight window. That is 19 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 697 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to DFW through the year
July is the worst month at 64.5% on time, 24 points below March, the best at 88.0%. 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 301 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.9%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
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 61,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% 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 61,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 61,235 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 25,000 of the 61,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.67%, 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 costs
8.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 70.4% on time across 3,156 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,162 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 American on PHL to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.67% 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. 3,019 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to PHL, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to DFW69.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.