Route reliability record
RAP→DFW
Rapid City to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,005
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 835 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,005 RAP to DFW flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Best time to fly RAP to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.9% of the time and Thursday flights 89.4%, against 84.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 72 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 984 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.79%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
84.4% on time across 1,002 flights
These figures cover 1,005 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 RAP 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 Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Air | 1,002 | 84.4% | 97 min | 1.80% | B |
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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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am360 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am76 flights83.6%
- 11am–2pm255 flights81.3%
- 2pm–5pm133 flights85.2%
- 5pm–8pm181 flights77.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.9% of the time, against 77.7% for the evening window. That is 12 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 360 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RAP 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 RAP to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 77.7%, a wide gap of 12.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.9%
- 8–11am83.6%
- 11am–2pm81.3%
- 2–5pm85.2%
- 5–8pm77.7%
- 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 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.
Delays peak in April, when the on-time rate falls to 72.3%. February is the strongest month at 92.9%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 21 points. July was the busiest month here, with 119 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 89.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.6%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 15%Extreme weather
- 12%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 15% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 14,766 reported delay minutes.
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations sit at 1.79% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.0% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 835 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 runs 81.7% on time across 1,005 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,005 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: treat all of this as provisional. 1,005 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 84.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 984 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RAP to DFW questions
How often is RAP to DFW delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.5% of the 1,005 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is RAP to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
84.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on RAP to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 77.7%, 12 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 April delays on RAP to DFW?
April is the weakest month at 72.3% on time, compared with 92.9% in February. 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 RAP — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- RAP to DEN, a related route80.5%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- ATL to DFW, a related route73.9%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record84.4%
- 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. RAP to DFW and DFW to RAP 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.