Route reliability record
PIT→DFW
Pittsburgh to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,511
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,067 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,511 PIT to DFW flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Best time to fly PIT to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.0% of the time and Thursday flights 85.0%, against 81.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 43 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,480 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
81.7% on time across 1,508 flights
These figures cover 1,511 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PIT 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 | 1,508 | 81.7% | 101 min | 1.53% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 3 | 33.3% | 30 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am527 flights89.0%
- 8am–11am5 flights—
- 11am–2pm354 flights86.0%
- 2pm–5pm352 flights74.3%
- 5pm–8pm273 flights70.3%
- 8pm–5am—
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 89.0% of the time, against 70.3% for the evening 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 527 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PIT 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 PIT to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 70.3%, a wide gap of 18.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.0%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm86.0%
- 2–5pm74.3%
- 5–8pm70.3%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 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 73.1% on time, against 87.5% in July. 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 152 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 75.6%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 27,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 27,430 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,680 of the 27,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.52% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.53%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,067 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 73.4% on time across 1,512 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 1,511 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. July runs 87.5% on time and December 73.1%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,480 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PIT to DFW questions
How often is PIT 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 18.4% of the 1,511 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is PIT to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
81.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PIT to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 70.3%, 19 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 PIT to DFW?
December is the weakest month at 73.1% on time, compared with 87.5% in July. Across the year that is 14 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 PIT — the return legseparate record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- PIT to ORD, a related route77.1%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- PIT to LGA, a related route79.9%
- American Airlines on-time record81.7%
- Envoy Air on-time record33.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PIT to DFW and DFW to PIT 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.