Route reliability record
VPS→DFW
Valparaiso to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,353
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 641 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,353 VPS to DFW flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly VPS to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.6%, against 72.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,292 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.62%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
69.8% on time across 1,029 flights
These figures cover 1,353 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% 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 VPS 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 159 | 83.3% | 137 min | 5.03% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 165 | 80.2% | 103 min | 1.82% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,029 | 69.8% | 106 min | 3.69% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on VPS 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Valparaiso 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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ECP → DFWPanama City to Dallas-Fort Worth | Envoy Air | 80.9% | 82.4% | 1.88% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ECP → DFWPanama City to Dallas-Fort Worth | PSA Airlines | 69.6% | 73.7% | 5.51% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. PNS → DFWPensacola to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 67.9% | 70.2% | 3.28% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 4. VPS → DFWValparaiso to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 67.2% | 69.8% | 3.69% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2501 15:50 |
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 half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am365 flights87.3%
- 8am–11am20 flights—
- 11am–2pm369 flights74.6%
- 2pm–5pm364 flights61.2%
- 5pm–8pm235 flights64.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.3% of the time, against 61.2% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 369 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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 52.8% on time, 30 points below January, the best at 82.6%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 138 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.6%. 16 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 45% of the 38,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% 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 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 38,118 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 14,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.62%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.2% 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 641 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 67.7% on time across 1,353 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,353 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 3.62% 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. 1,292 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
VPS to DFW questions
How often is VPS to DFW delayed?
Roughly 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 27.3% of the 1,353 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is VPS to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
72.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on VPS to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 61.2%, 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 June delays on VPS to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 52.8% on time, compared with 82.6% in January. Across the year that is 30 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 VPS — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on VPS to DFW83.3%
- Envoy Air on VPS to DFW80.2%
- American Airlines on VPS to DFW69.8%
- VPS to ATL, a related route85.9%
- ORD to DFW, a related route69.7%
- VPS to CLT, a related route82.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record83.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record80.2%
- American Airlines on-time record69.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. VPS to DFW and DFW to VPS 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.