WN54

WN54 arrived on time 72.9% of the time, against 81.3% for all HOU → DAL flights, so this departure is 8.4 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Southwest Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 8.4 points worse.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 619 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If WN54 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 WN54 on HOU → DAL. 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, WN54 pushed back an average of 36 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 5 minutes late.

Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into HOU just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 560 of 606 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

WN54 pushes back an average of 13.9 minutes late and reaches the gate at DAL an average of 7.3 minutes late. The 6.6 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. Its 11.8 minutes on the taxiways at HOU is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.

On arrival at DAL, WN54 spends 7.3 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 1.8 minutes longer than a typical DAL arrival (5.5 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 DAL. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 12,525 departures from HOU scheduled in the clock hour WN54 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at DAL (224,035 flights), not just WN54’s own. More on taxi time.

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

WN54 is scheduled out of HOU at 8:30 PM, in the 8 PM–9 PM bank. Departures from HOU in that hour arrive on time 71.6% of the time against 78.8% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 7.3 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.

The two airport figures cover every departure from HOU 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 WN54 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. WN54 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.

• WN52 HOU→DAL Southwest Airlines on the same route, departs 7:00 PM, on time 73.5%
• WN1636 HOU→DAL Southwest Airlines on the same route, departs 6:00 AM, on time 94.4%
• WN4 HOU→DAL Southwest Airlines on the same route, departs 7:00 AM, on time 95.2%