Route reliability record
SEA→DFW
Seattle to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 5,237
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 1,660 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 5,237 flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,735 at 77.4% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.4% on time across 2,735 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,079 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.14%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
American
77.4% on time across 2,735 flights
These figures cover 5,237 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to DFW
The three carriers here are closely matched: 2 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 2,735 | 77.4% | 88 min | 3.00% | B |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,755 | 77.0% | 46 min | 1.03% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 710 | 75.1% | 85 min | 1.69% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 37 | 48.6% | 78 min | 0.00% | F+ |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 77.4%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 24 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am886 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am1,343 flights78.3%
- 11am–2pm753 flights67.5%
- 2pm–5pm500 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm973 flights72.7%
- 8pm–5am782 flights74.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 67.5% on time against 91.0% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 61.2% on time, 27 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.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.2%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 86,000 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.
- 46%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 2%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 86,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 largest share of delay minutes, 46%, 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 39,000 of the 86,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.14% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.88%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,660 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.4% on time across 5,238 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 5,237 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 this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 88.0% on time and June 61.2%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else.
Common questions
SEA to DFW questions
How often is SEA to DFW delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.3% of the 5,237 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to DFW?
American Airlines leads at 77.4% on time across 2,735 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 75.1%, a gap of 2 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 SEA to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.0% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 67.5%, 24 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 SEA to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 61.2% on time, compared with 88.0% in February. Across the year that is 27 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 SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- American Airlines on-time record77.4%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record77.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.1%
- 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. SEA to DFW and DFW to SEA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.