Route reliability record
SLC→DFW
Salt Lake City to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 3,870
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 989 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 3,870 SLC to DFW flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,458 at 81.6% on time.
Best time to fly SLC to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.1%, against 79.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,755 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.20%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
81.6% on time across 1,458 flights
These figures cover 3,870 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SLC 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,458 | 81.6% | 64 min | 1.23% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,202 | 78.7% | 105 min | 2.82% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 201 | 78.1% | 67 min | 2.49% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 9 | 77.8% | 46 min | 0.00% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 81.6%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SLC 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 Salt Lake City 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. PVU → DFWProvo to Dallas-Fort Worth | SkyWest Airlines | 83.9% | 85.4% | 1.76% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | OO 4980 13:34 |
| 2. SLC → DFWSalt Lake City to Dallas-Fort Worth | Delta Air Lines | 80.6% | 81.6% | 1.23% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 2798 07:45 |
| 3. SLC → DFWSalt Lake City to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 76.5% | 78.7% | 2.82% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 1214 05:00 |
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 26 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am940 flights88.9%
- 8am–11am861 flights86.6%
- 11am–2pm769 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm801 flights63.2%
- 5pm–8pm443 flights77.6%
- 8pm–5am56 flights72.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.9% of the time, against 63.2% for the afternoon window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 940 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SLC 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 SLC to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 63.2%, a wide gap of 25.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.9%
- 8–11am86.6%
- 11am–2pm79.8%
- 2–5pm63.2%
- 5–8pm77.6%
- 8pm–5am72.2%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
July is the worst month at 72.9% on time, 13 points below February, the best at 86.2%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 358 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.4%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 67,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 67,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 to one. The split is drawn from 67,274 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 29,000 of the 67,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.20% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.78%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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.
The 989 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 71.1% on time across 3,872 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,870 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. February runs 86.2% on time and July 72.9%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,755 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SLC to DFW questions
How often is SLC to DFW delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.2% of the 3,870 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 SLC to DFW?
Delta Air Lines leads at 81.6% on time across 1,458 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 78.7%, 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 SLC to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 63.2%, 26 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 July delays on SLC to DFW?
July is the weakest month at 72.9% on time, compared with 86.2% in February. Across the year that is 13 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 SLC — the return legseparate record
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on SLC to DFW81.6%
- American Airlines on SLC to DFW78.7%
- Frontier Airlines on SLC to DFW78.1%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- SLC to PHX, a related route83.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.6%
- American Airlines on-time record78.7%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record78.1%
- 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. SLC to DFW and DFW to SLC 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.