Route reliability record
TUS→DFW
Tucson to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,189
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 813 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B−, 4 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 close to two hours on average. That rests on 2,189 TUS to DFW flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly TUS to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.5% of the time and Friday flights 84.1%, against 81.2% 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
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,109 completed flights
Avg delay
100 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.15%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
81.2% on time across 2,116 flights
These figures cover 2,189 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 TUS 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 | 31 | 90.0% | 212 min | 3.23% | A− |
| American Airlines | 2,116 | 81.2% | 101 min | 3.12% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 42 | 77.5% | 46 min | 4.76% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on TUS 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am706 flights91.5%
- 8am–11am624 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm433 flights72.2%
- 2pm–5pm345 flights67.8%
- 5pm–8pm79 flights75.3%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.5% of the time, against 67.8% for the afternoon window. That is 24 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 706 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TUS 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 TUS to DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.5% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 67.8%, a wide gap of 23.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.5%
- 8–11am83.8%
- 11am–2pm72.2%
- 2–5pm67.8%
- 5–8pm75.3%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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 70.5% on time, 19 points below February, the best at 89.6%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 224 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 76.5%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 40,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 40,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 39,758 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 91.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.15%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
8.0% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 813 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 69.4% on time across 2,190 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 2,189 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 3.15% 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. 2,109 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TUS to DFW questions
How often is TUS 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 18.8% of the 2,189 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is TUS to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
81.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TUS to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 67.8%, 24 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 TUS to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 70.5% on time, compared with 89.6% in February. Across the year that is 19 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 TUS — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- TUS to PHX, a related route83.6%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- TUS to DEN, a related route83.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record90.0%
- American Airlines on-time record81.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. TUS to DFW and DFW to TUS 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.