Route reliability record
SFO→DFW
San Francisco to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 4,127
- Period
- July 2025 to June 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 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 4,127 flights, of which United Airlines flew 854 at 77.4% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 41 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,994 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.37%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
77.4% on time across 854 flights
These figures cover 4,127 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to DFW
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 854 | 77.4% | 54 min | 0.47% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 3,072 | 73.4% | 100 min | 2.80% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 17 | 62.5% | 81 min | 5.88% | D− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 184 | 55.7% | 55 min | 3.80% | D− |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 77.4%, 4 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 30 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am627 flights90.2%
- 8am–11am948 flights81.3%
- 11am–2pm588 flights66.4%
- 2pm–5pm864 flights60.7%
- 5pm–8pm378 flights72.9%
- 8pm–5am722 flights70.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.2% of the time, against 60.7% for the afternoon window. That is 30 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 948 flights scheduled in it.
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 76.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.6%. 5 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 94,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% 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 94,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 32 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 93,538 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 33,000 of the 94,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.37% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.85%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.6% 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 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. 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 62.0% on time across 4,125 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 4,127 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. 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. 3,994 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.5% of the 4,127 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 77.4% on time across 854 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 73.4%, a gap of 4 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 90.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 60.7%, 30 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-time record77.4%
- American Airlines on-time record73.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record62.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.