Route reliability record
SDF→DFW
Louisville to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,994
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 733 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B−, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,994 SDF to DFW flights, of which Envoy Air flew 389 at 81.2% on time.
Best time to fly SDF to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 78.5%, against 76.0% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.2% on time across 389 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,925 completed flights
Avg delay
112 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.06%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
81.2% on time across 389 flights
These figures cover 1,994 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SDF to DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 81.2% of the time; American Airlines manages 72.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,186 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 389 | 81.2% | 65 min | 1.29% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 389 | 80.0% | 166 min | 4.63% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 30 | 78.6% | 52 min | 3.33% | B− |
| American Airlines | 1,186 | 72.9% | 111 min | 3.12% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 4.6% 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.
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 Louisville to Dallas-Fort Worth
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SDF → DFWLouisville to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 80.2% | 81.2% | 1.29% | 11am–2pm, Thu | — |
| 2. SDF → DFWLouisville to Dallas-Fort Worth | PSA Airlines | 76.3% | 80.0% | 4.63% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | — |
| 3. SDF → DFWLouisville to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 70.6% | 72.9% | 3.12% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 23 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am479 flights83.1%
- 8am–11am161 flights77.8%
- 11am–2pm435 flights80.8%
- 2pm–5pm362 flights78.9%
- 5pm–8pm425 flights64.6%
- 8pm–5am132 flights60.3%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.3% on time, against 83.1% 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 479 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SDF 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 SDF to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 83.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 60.3%, a wide gap of 22.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am83.1%
- 8–11am77.8%
- 11am–2pm80.8%
- 2–5pm78.9%
- 5–8pm64.6%
- 8pm–5am60.3%
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.
December is the weak month at 66.4% on time, against 86.6% in February. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 196 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.1%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 52,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 52,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 51,657 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 24,000 of the 52,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.06%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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 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.
The 733 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.8% on time across 1,992 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,994 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 3.06% 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. 1,925 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SDF to DFW questions
How often is SDF to DFW delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.0% of the 1,994 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 SDF to DFW?
Envoy Air leads at 81.2% on time across 389 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 72.9%, a gap of 8 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 SDF to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.3%, 23 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 December delays on SDF to DFW?
December is the weakest month at 66.4% on time, compared with 86.6% 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 SDF — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on SDF to DFW81.2%
- PSA Airlines on SDF to DFW80.0%
- American Airlines on SDF to DFW72.9%
- SDF to ORD, a related route79.3%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- SDF to ATL, a related route89.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record81.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record80.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record78.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. SDF to DFW and DFW to SDF are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed SDF to DFW’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.