Route reliability record
SAT→DAL
San Antonio to Dallas
- Flights
- 2,740
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 247 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,740 SAT to DAL flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly SAT to DAL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.7%, against 83.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 61 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,700 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.13%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
83.4% on time across 2,740 flights
These figures cover 2,740 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 SAT to DAL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,740 | 83.4% | 59 min | 1.13% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Antonio to Dallas
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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SAT → DALSan Antonio to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 82.5% | 83.4% | 1.13% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. SAT → DFWSan Antonio to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 77.4% | 79.7% | 2.92% | 5am–8am, Thu | AA 2342 06:00 |
| 3. SAT → DFWSan Antonio to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 73.7% | 75.6% | 2.47% | 11am–2pm, Fri | — |
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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am561 flights95.3%
- 8am–11am430 flights96.0%
- 11am–2pm535 flights88.1%
- 2pm–5pm386 flights76.8%
- 5pm–8pm548 flights70.4%
- 8pm–5am280 flights65.9%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 96.0% of the time, against 65.9% for the overnight window. That is 30 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 561 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAT to DAL 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 SAT to DAL, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 96.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.9%, a wide gap of 30.1 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am95.3%
- 8–11am96.0%
- 11am–2pm88.1%
- 2–5pm76.8%
- 5–8pm70.4%
- 8pm–5am65.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 68.8% on time, 20 points below January, the best at 89.2%. 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 255 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.8%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 17%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 25,487 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 96.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.13% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.0% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 247 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.7% on time across 2,755 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,740 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 DAL 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. January runs 89.2% on time and June 68.8%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,700 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAT to DAL questions
How often is SAT to DAL 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 16.6% of the 2,740 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is SAT to DAL compared with the rest of the country?
83.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAT to DAL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 96.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.9%, 30 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 SAT to DAL?
June is the weakest month at 68.8% on time, compared with 89.2% in January. Across the year that is 20 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
- DAL to SAT — the return legseparate record
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- SAT to DFW, a related route79.4%
- HOU to DAL, a related route81.6%
- SAT to DEN, a related route82.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record83.4%
- 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. SAT to DAL and DAL to SAT 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.