Route reliability record
STL→DFW
St. Louis to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,391
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 550 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B−, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 2,391 STL to DFW flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly STL to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.2%, against 76.2% 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
76.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,309 completed flights
Avg delay
114 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.05%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
76.3% on time across 1,878 flights
These figures cover 2,391 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 STL 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 Airthin sample | 240 | 82.3% | 73 min | 3.33% | B− |
| American Airlines | 1,878 | 76.3% | 119 min | 3.14% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 52 | 73.1% | 86 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 107 | 72.1% | 134 min | 1.87% | C |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 114 | 67.3% | 106 min | 3.51% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on STL 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 St. Louis 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. STL → DALSt. Louis to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 74.2% | 75.2% | 1.39% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. STL → DFWSt. Louis to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 73.9% | 76.3% | 3.14% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2261 05:20 |
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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am701 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am544 flights81.4%
- 11am–2pm405 flights71.5%
- 2pm–5pm303 flights70.8%
- 5pm–8pm436 flights58.9%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.9% on time, against 87.7% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 701 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter STL 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 STL to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 58.9%, a wide gap of 28.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.7%
- 8–11am81.4%
- 11am–2pm71.5%
- 2–5pm70.8%
- 5–8pm58.9%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 65.3% on time, 20 points below February, the best at 85.4%. 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 240 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.2%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 63,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 63,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 62,820 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.05%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
11.4% 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 550 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 69.7% on time across 2,392 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,391 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.05% 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. 2,309 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
STL to DFW questions
How often is STL 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 23.8% of the 2,391 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is STL to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
76.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on STL to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.9%, 29 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 STL to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 65.3% on time, compared with 85.4% in February. Across the year that is 20 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 STL — the return legseparate record
- St. Louis Lambert International (STL) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on STL to DFW82.3%
- American Airlines on STL to DFW76.3%
- Frontier Airlines on STL to DFW72.1%
- PSA Airlines on STL to DFW67.3%
- STL to DEN, a related route75.0%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- STL to ATL, a related route84.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record82.3%
- American Airlines on-time record76.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record73.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. STL to DFW and DFW to STL 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.