Route profile
DAL→SJC
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Dallas to San Jose, 1,450 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 44% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 1,730 flights. How this is calculated
DAL → SJC arrives on time 74.2% of the time; the return trip, SJC → DAL, arrives on time 84.4% of the time, a 10.2-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DAL → SJC spends 16.8 minutes on the ground on a 1,450-mile trip: 12.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DAL and 4.3 minutes from touchdown to gate at SJC.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Reliability here swings unusually widely by season, a wider month-to-month spread than 96% of 3,357 comparable routes.
83.6% on time in a typical November, against 57.0% in June.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 3,357 in the comparison.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
46 min late
against a median of 2 min early
Percentiles over 1,730 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SJC after arriving from DAL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 45% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 25% | High risk |
| 60 min | 15% | High risk |
| 90 min | 7.2% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 3.4% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 0.98% of the time and diverts 0.06% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 1,712 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 46 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 1,730 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DAL → SJC flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 90.1% of the time, against 65.2% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 24.9 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 6 AM: too few flights to score
- 7 AM: 90.1% on time from 344 flights
- 8 AM to 5 PM: too few flights to score
- 6 PM: 58.4% on time from 163 flights
- 7 PM: 69.0% on time from 189 flights
- 8 PM: 66.0% on time from 435 flights
- 9 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why DAL → SJC runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DAL → SJC. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DAL → SJC, at 59.4%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 90.1% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 65.2%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,730 | 74.2% | 0.98% | -2 min | 7.3% |
Other ways to fly Dallas–Fort Worth to San Francisco
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
| Route | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DFW→SFO Dallas–Fort Worth to San Francisco | 12,706 | 64.3% | 1.82% | 2 min | 36 |
| DAL→SJC this route Dallas to San Jose | 1,730 | 74.2% | 0.98% | -2 min | 64 |
DAL → SJC is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 74.2% on time, against 64.3% for DFW → SFO.
Flying to SJC from the Dallas–Fort Worth area? Compare DAL, DFW for SJC, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Friday is historically the most reliable day and Saturday the least, a gap of 13.3 percentage points.
By month
- Jan to Feb: no data
- Mar: 77.7%
- Apr: 71.1%
- May: 66.4%
- Jun: 57.0%
- Jul: 64.9%
- Aug: 82.1%
- Sep: 78.5%
- Oct: 82.5%
- Nov: 83.6%
- Dec: 81.2%
June is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 26.6 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 66.3% against 78.4% in the 12 months before — declining by 12.1 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,730 DAL → SJC flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed