Route reliability record
SFO→DFW
San Francisco to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 4,262
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,464 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 4,262 SFO to DFW flights, of which United Airlines flew 916 at 75.5% on time.
Best time to fly SFO to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 77.0%, against 73.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 42 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,139 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.25%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
75.5% on time across 916 flights
These figures cover 4,262 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to DFW
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 916 | 75.5% | 55 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 3,094 | 73.0% | 95 min | 2.62% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 35 | 70.6% | 60 min | 2.86% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 217 | 64.3% | 52 min | 4.15% | D− |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 75.5%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SFO to DFW
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Francisco to Dallas-Fort Worth
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SJC → DFWSan Jose to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 79.8% | 81.4% | 1.92% | 8am–11am, Thu | AA 1019 06:00 |
| 2. SFO → DFWSan Francisco to Dallas-Fort Worth | United Airlines | 75.1% | 75.5% | 0.55% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. SFO → DFWSan Francisco to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 71.1% | 73.0% | 2.62% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2904 08:00 |
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 32 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am646 flights91.9%
- 8am–11am1,010 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm595 flights66.0%
- 2pm–5pm843 flights60.3%
- 5pm–8pm441 flights68.4%
- 8pm–5am727 flights67.5%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.9% of the time, against 60.3% for the afternoon window. That is 32 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,010 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO 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 SFO to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 60.3%, a wide gap of 31.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.9%
- 8–11am81.7%
- 11am–2pm66.0%
- 2–5pm60.3%
- 5–8pm68.4%
- 8pm–5am67.5%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 60.9% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 83.8%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 424 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 77.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 71.0%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 93,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 93,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 48 to one. The split is drawn from 93,289 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 32,000 of the 93,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.25% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.63%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.0% 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 1,464 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 60.8% on time across 4,264 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,262 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 83.8% on time and June 60.9%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 4,139 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to DFW questions
How often is SFO 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 26.9% of the 4,262 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to DFW?
United Airlines leads at 75.5% on time across 916 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 73.0%, a gap of 3 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 SFO to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 60.3%, 32 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 SFO to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 60.9% on time, compared with 83.8% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- United Airlines on SFO to DFW75.5%
- American Airlines on SFO to DFW73.0%
- Frontier Airlines on SFO to DFW64.3%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- United Airlines on-time record75.5%
- American Airlines on-time record73.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record70.6%
- 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. SFO to DFW and DFW to SFO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.