Route reliability record
SPS→DFW
Wichita Falls to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 729
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 113 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B−, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 729 SPS to DFW flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 57 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 700 completed flights
Avg delay
114 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.98%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
85.4% on time across 480 flights
These figures cover 729 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% 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 SPS to DFW
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 480 | 85.4% | 108 min | 4.17% | A− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 249 | 79.2% | 122 min | 3.61% | B− |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Wichita Falls 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 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SPS → DFWWichita Falls to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 81.8% | 85.4% | 4.17% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | — |
| 2. LAW → DFWLawton to Dallas-Fort Worth | PSA Airlines | 70.1% | 74.4% | 5.81% | 5am–8am, Tue (route) | — |
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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 729 flights.
- 5am–8am365 flights83.7%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm364 flights82.9%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5am–8am window is the strongest at 83.7% on time. The full set of windows spans about a point.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 66.1% on time, 25 points below November, the best at 90.7%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.2%. 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 49% of the 13,000 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.
- 49%Carrier
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Extreme weather
- 11%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 19% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,315 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, 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 6,578 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.98%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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 actually costs
8.7% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 113 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 83.6% on time across 729 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 729 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DFW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.98% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 700 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SPS to DFW questions
How often is SPS to DFW delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.7% of the 729 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is SPS to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
83.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
Does the departure time change the odds on SPS to DFW?
Not by much in this data. Every departure window falls within about a point of the others, so there is no hour worth rearranging a trip for. The overall rate of 83.3% is the figure to plan against.
How bad are July delays on SPS to DFW?
July is the weakest month at 66.1% on time, compared with 90.7% in November. Across the year that is 25 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 SPS — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on SPS to DFW85.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on SPS to DFW79.2%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- LGA to DFW, a related route70.8%
- ATL to DFW, a related route74.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record85.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record79.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. SPS to DFW and DFW to SPS 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.