Carrier route record
AASAT→DFW
American Airlines · San Antonio to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 3,550
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 81%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on SAT to DFW carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 3,550 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 367 at 80.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on SAT to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,420 completed flights
Avg delay
107 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.1%
Every carrier on SAT to DFW, 4,382 flights
These figures cover 3,550 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on SAT to DFW
American flew 3,550 of the 4,382 flights on SAT to DFW, most of the route. Its 77.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 100.0% to Envoy at 71.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 80.8% of the time; Envoy Air manages 71.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 460 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 367 | 80.8% | 133 min | 3.27% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 3,550 | 77.4% | 107 min | 3.46% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 460 | 71.3% | 79 min | 3.70% | C− |
Envoy Air cancels 3.7% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on SAT to DFW
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,061 flights88.0%
- 8am–11am1,038 flights82.5%
- 11am–2pm343 flights70.1%
- 2pm–5pm557 flights69.9%
- 5pm–8pm387 flights59.9%
- 8pm–5am164 flights58.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.0% on time, against 88.0% 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 1,061 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on SAT to DFW through the year
August is the worst month at 66.3% on time, 22 points below February, the best at 88.0%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 333 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.7%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 83,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 19%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 19% 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 82,606 reported delay minutes.
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 83,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
Cancellations run at 3.46%, 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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 64.1% on time across 3,551 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,550 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on SAT to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.46% 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. 3,420 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SAT to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to SAT, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on SAT to DFW80.8%
- Envoy Air on SAT to DFW71.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.