Carrier route record
AASDF→DFW
American Airlines · Louisville to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,176
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 58%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on SDF to DFW carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,176 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on SDF to DFW runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,133 completed flights
Avg delay
113 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.23%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.9%
Every carrier on SDF to DFW, 2,015 flights
These figures cover 1,176 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% 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 SDF to DFW
American flew 1,176 of the 2,015 flights on SDF to DFW, most of the route. Its 72.7% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 78.3% to American at 72.7%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 463 | 78.3% | 164 min | 4.97% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 308 | 78.0% | 68 min | 2.60% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 56 | 77.4% | 117 min | 3.57% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 12 | 75.0% | 40 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,176 | 72.7% | 113 min | 3.23% | C− |
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 36 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am451 flights83.1%
- 8am–11am178 flights74.7%
- 11am–2pm142 flights71.2%
- 2pm–5pm59 flights63.8%
- 5pm–8pm313 flights61.7%
- 8pm–5am33 flights46.9%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 46.9% 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 451 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on SDF to DFW through the year
August is the worst month at 53.6% on time, 32 points below February, the best at 85.6%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 125 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 76.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.6%. 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. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 35,000 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.
- 49%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% 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 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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. The split is drawn from 34,849 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 17,000 of the 35,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.23%, 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. 11.6% 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.
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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 62.9% on time across 1,174 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,176 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 SDF to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.23% 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. 1,133 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SDF to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to SDF, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on SDF to DFW78.3%
- Envoy Air on SDF to DFW78.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- 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.