Carrier route record
AASEA→DFW
American Airlines · Seattle to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,738
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 52%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on SEA to DFW lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,738 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Alaska Airlines, flew 1,755 at 78.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on SEA 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
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,626 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.81%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.6%
Every carrier on SEA to DFW, 5,233 flights
These figures cover 2,738 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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 SEA to DFW
American flew 2,738 of the 5,233 flights on SEA to DFW, most of the route. Its 77.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 78.9% to Frontier at 46.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 1,755 | 78.9% | 44 min | 1.03% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,738 | 77.6% | 98 min | 2.81% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 712 | 75.1% | 83 min | 1.69% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 28 | 46.4% | 84 min | 0.00% | F+ |
No carrier stands out. Alaska tops the table at 78.9%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on SEA 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 24 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am716 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am370 flights79.3%
- 11am–2pm425 flights67.9%
- 2pm–5pm469 flights70.3%
- 5pm–8pm274 flights70.3%
- 8pm–5am484 flights75.5%
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 67.9% on time against 91.6% 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. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 716 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on SEA to DFW through the year
June is the worst month at 65.8% on time, 21 points below April, the best at 86.5%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 259 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.5%. 12 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 47% of the 58,000 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.
- 47%Carrier
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% 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 58,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 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 57,738 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, 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 27,000 of the 58,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.81%, against 1.81% 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 costs
8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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 last an hour and a half, 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 65.0% on time across 2,736 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 2,738 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 SEA to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.81% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 2,626 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to SEA, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to DFW78.9%
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to DFW75.1%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) 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.