Route reliability record
PSP→DFW
Palm Springs to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 997
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,126 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 997 PSP to DFW flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly PSP to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.2%, against 79.7% for the route overall.
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.
Key figures
On time
79.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 955 completed flights
Avg delay
114 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.31%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
79.7% on time across 997 flights
These figures cover 997 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PSP 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 | 997 | 79.7% | 114 min | 3.31% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on PSP 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.
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–8am365 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am35 flights74.3%
- 11am–2pm375 flights72.1%
- 2pm–5pm222 flights72.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 72.1% on time against 92.5% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 375 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.
August is the worst month at 68.4% on time, 22 points below December, the best at 89.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.2% on time and Saturday the weakest at 67.2%. 20 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. Carrier accounts for 56% of the 22,000 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.
- 56%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, 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 12,000 of the 22,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 22,037 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 92.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.31%, 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
7.2% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,126 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 70.0% on time across 997 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 997 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
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 3.31% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 955 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PSP to DFW questions
How often is PSP to DFW delayed?
About 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 20.3% of the 997 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is PSP to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
79.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PSP to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.5% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 72.1%, 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 August delays on PSP to DFW?
August is the weakest month at 68.4% on time, compared with 89.9% in December. 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.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to PSP — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- PSP to SFO, a related route64.5%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- PSP to DEN, a related route81.6%
- American Airlines on-time record79.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. PSP to DFW and DFW to PSP 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.