WN39

WN39 arrived on time 72.3% of the time, against 76.8% for all DAL → HOU flights, so this departure is 4.5 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Southwest Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 4.5 points worse.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 738 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If WN39 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for WN39 on DAL → HOU. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, WN39 pushed back an average of 48 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 7 minutes late.

Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into DAL just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 702 of 726 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

WN39 pushes back an average of 16.8 minutes late and reaches the gate at HOU an average of 11.1 minutes late. The 5.7 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 15.9 minutes on the taxiways at DAL, 2.0 minutes longer than a typical DAL departure in the same hour.

On arrival at HOU, WN39 spends 4.8 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 1.0 minutes shorter than a typical HOU arrival (5.8 min).

Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached HOU. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 13,761 departures from DAL scheduled in the clock hour WN39 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at HOU (172,208 flights), not just WN39’s own. More on taxi time.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026

WN39 is scheduled out of DAL at 4:00 PM, in the 4 PM–5 PM bank. Departures from DAL in that hour arrive on time 67.5% of the time against 76.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.5 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.

The two airport figures cover every departure from DAL to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.

Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route WN39 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. WN39 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.

• WN19 DAL→HOU Southwest Airlines on the same route, departs 11:30 AM, on time 82.3%
• WN7 DAL→HOU Southwest Airlines on the same route, departs 8:30 AM, on time 86.4%
• WN1 DAL→HOU Southwest Airlines on the same route, departs 7:00 AM, on time 89.9%