Route reliability record
SAT→DFW
San Antonio to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 4,374
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 247 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 close to two hours on average. That rests on 4,374 SAT to DFW flights, of which American Airlines flew 3,530 at 79.7% on time.
Best time to fly SAT to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.6% of the time and Thursday flights 84.1%, against 79.4% 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
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,244 completed flights
Avg delay
104 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.83%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
79.7% on time across 3,530 flights
These figures cover 4,374 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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 SAT to DFW
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 313 | 82.6% | 140 min | 2.56% | B |
| American Airlines | 3,530 | 79.7% | 107 min | 2.92% | B |
| Envoy Air | 526 | 75.6% | 71 min | 2.47% | B |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 79.7%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SAT 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Antonio 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. 1 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 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,063 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am989 flights85.0%
- 11am–2pm830 flights77.8%
- 2pm–5pm690 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm591 flights69.5%
- 8pm–5am211 flights59.1%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.1% on time, against 89.6% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,063 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAT 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 SAT to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 59.1%, a wide gap of 30.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.6%
- 8–11am85.0%
- 11am–2pm77.8%
- 2–5pm72.1%
- 5–8pm69.5%
- 8pm–5am59.1%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
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 68.0% on time, 20 points below February, the best at 88.3%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 390 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.5%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 91,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 23%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 23% 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 3.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 90,850 reported delay minutes.
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 91,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 to one.
Cancellations run at 2.83%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
9.5% 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.
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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.8% on time across 4,375 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,374 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 delay figures matter less here than the 2.83% 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. 4,244 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAT to DFW questions
How often is SAT 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 20.6% of the 4,374 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SAT to DFW?
American Airlines leads at 79.7% on time across 3,530 flights. Envoy Air is at the other end on 75.6%, a gap of 4 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAT to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.1%, 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 DFW?
June is the weakest month at 68.0% on time, compared with 88.3% in February. 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
- DFW to SAT — the return legseparate record
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on SAT to DFW82.6%
- American Airlines on SAT to DFW79.7%
- Envoy Air on SAT to DFW75.6%
- SAT to DEN, a related route82.1%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- SAT to ATL, a related route85.9%
- PSA Airlines on-time record100.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.6%
- American Airlines on-time record79.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. SAT to DFW and DFW 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.