Route reliability record
SAF→DFW
Santa Fe to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,763
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 551 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,763 SAF to DFW flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly SAF to DFW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.3%, against 79.5% 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
79.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,709 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
79.5% on time across 1,763 flights
These figures cover 1,763 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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 SAF 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,763 | 79.5% | 86 min | 2.61% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on SAF 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Santa Fe to Dallas-Fort Worth
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ABQ → DALAlbuquerque to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 81.2% | 82.4% | 1.48% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. ABQ → DFWAlbuquerque to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 79.7% | 80.8% | 1.40% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. ABQ → DFWAlbuquerque to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 79.0% | 81.2% | 2.74% | 5am–8am, Fri | AA 9 16:48 |
| 4. SAF → DFWSanta Fe to Dallas-Fort Worth | SkyWest Airlines | 77.4% | 79.5% | 2.61% | 8am–11am, Wed | OO 6403 06:15 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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–8am501 flights81.8%
- 8am–11am391 flights86.7%
- 11am–2pm381 flights77.4%
- 2pm–5pm246 flights77.2%
- 5pm–8pm244 flights68.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 68.0% 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 501 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAF 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 SAF to DFW, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 86.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.0%, a wide gap of 18.7 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am81.8%
- 8–11am86.7%
- 11am–2pm77.4%
- 2–5pm77.2%
- 5–8pm68.0%
- 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 13 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.
June is the worst month at 72.2% on time, 13 points below May, the best at 85.0%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 185 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.3%, a spread of 10 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 30,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Extreme weather
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 18% 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 3.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 30,138 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 30,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.61%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
9.3% 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 551 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 76.9% on time across 1,765 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,763 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. May runs 85.0% on time and June 72.2%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,709 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAF to DFW questions
How often is SAF 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 20.5% of the 1,763 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is SAF to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
79.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 SAF to DFW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.0%, 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 June delays on SAF to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 72.2% on time, compared with 85.0% in May. Across the year that is 13 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 SAF — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- SAF to DEN, a related route79.0%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- ATL to DFW, a related route73.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record79.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. SAF to DFW and DFW to SAF 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.