Route profile
DFW→EWR
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Dallas–Fort Worth to Newark, 1,372 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 5% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,983 flights. How this is calculated
DFW → EWR arrives on time 73.0% of the time; the return trip, EWR → DFW, arrives on time 77.8% of the time, a 4.8-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DFW → EWR spends 29.0 minutes on the ground on a 1,372-mile trip: 19.8 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DFW and 9.2 minutes from touchdown to gate at EWR.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route's worst arrivals run unusually far past its typical one, a bigger gap than 97% of 4,598 comparable routes.
A typical arrival is 5 min early, but the worst tenth run 83 minutes worse than that.
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 4,598 in the comparison.
Why DFW → EWR flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DFW → EWR cancelled 308 of 10,983 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 36. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 74.4% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 48 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 308 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
229 cancellations, 74.4% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
55 cancellations, 17.9% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
24 cancellations, 7.8% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
308 coded cancellations were recorded on DFW → EWR; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
78 min late
against a median of 5 min early
DFW → EWR has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 5 min early, but the worst tenth are 83 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 10,983 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at EWR after arriving from DFW.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 41% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 26% | High risk |
| 60 min | 19% | High risk |
| 90 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 8.5% | Some 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 2.80% of the time and diverts 0.67% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 10,601 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 78 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,983 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DFW → EWR flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 87.3% of the time, against 59.6% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 27.7 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 91.0% on time from 679 flights
- 7 AM: 86.4% on time from 1,849 flights
- 8 AM: 85.4% on time from 609 flights
- 9 AM: 84.1% on time from 206 flights
- 10 AM: 79.7% on time from 571 flights
- 11 AM: 72.6% on time from 1,616 flights
- 12 PM: 76.2% on time from 228 flights
- 1 PM: 70.9% on time from 693 flights
- 2 PM: 58.1% on time from 818 flights
- 3 PM: 57.0% on time from 400 flights
- 4 PM: 62.8% on time from 445 flights
- 5 PM: 59.2% on time from 787 flights
- 6 PM: 56.1% on time from 345 flights
- 7 PM: 65.7% on time from 1,518 flights
- 8 PM: 67.9% on time from 139 flights
- 9 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DFW → EWR runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s 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 DFW → EWR. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DFW → EWR, at 36.4%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 87.3% of the time and 3–6 PM departures 59.6%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 7.0 times the normal rate at DFW against 3.3 times at EWR. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: DFW 10.4% against 1.5%, EWR 6.9% against 2.1%. Flights that did leave DFW in bad weather arrived on time 56.4% of the time, against 74.4% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | DFW | EWR |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 10.4% | 6.9% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.5% | 2.1% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 56.4% | 65.8% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 74.4% | 80.0% |
| Departures in bad weather | 72,822 | 51,613 |
United Airlines (4.8% cancelled against 10.6% for the other carriers at DFW) and Spirit Airlines (5.4% cancelled against 9.9% for the other carriers at DFW) cancelled fewer departures from DFW in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly worse.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at DFW
All departures from DFW| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,209 | 4.8%below the others | 10.6% |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,826 | 5.4%below the others | 9.9% |
| American Airlines | 38,491 | 10.0%about level | 10.9% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from DFW and EWR, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from DFW on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: DFW (airlines), EWR, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 5,316 | 78.3% | 2.75% | -8 min | 10.8% |
| American Airlines | 4,488 | 66.2% | 3.05% | 0 min | 14.3% |
| Spirit Airlines | 997 | 74.0% | 2.21% | -6 min | 11.8% |
United Airlines flew 49.2% of the 10,801 flights listed.
United Airlines arrived on time 12.1 percentage points more often than American Airlines on this route.
Other ways to fly Dallas–Fort Worth to New York
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
| Route | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DFW→LGA Dallas–Fort Worth to New York | 20,151 | 73.0% | 3.15% | -4 min | 43 |
| DFW→EWR this route Dallas–Fort Worth to Newark | 10,983 | 73.0% | 2.80% | -5 min | 40 |
Flying to EWR from the Dallas–Fort Worth area? Compare DFW, DAL for EWR, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 10.3 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 78.7%
- Feb: 81.6%
- Mar: 72.1%
- Apr: 73.4%
- May: 68.4%
- Jun: 66.7%
- Jul: 63.6%
- Aug: 73.3%
- Sep: 79.3%
- Oct: 76.8%
- Nov: 73.1%
- Dec: 73.1%
July is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 18.0 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 65.0% from 340 flights
- August 2023: 84.8% from 332 flights
- September 2023: 77.9% from 296 flights
- October 2023: 87.9% from 309 flights
- November 2023: 87.5% from 305 flights
- December 2023: 83.5% from 272 flights
- January 2024: 75.3% from 263 flights
- February 2024: 87.3% from 273 flights
- March 2024: 74.5% from 301 flights
- April 2024: 76.6% from 285 flights
- May 2024: 68.9% from 300 flights
- June 2024: 68.4% from 309 flights
- July 2024: 63.9% from 318 flights
- August 2024: 71.3% from 297 flights
- September 2024: 84.2% from 293 flights
- October 2024: 77.4% from 305 flights
- November 2024: 63.3% from 309 flights
- December 2024: 63.9% from 313 flights
- January 2025: 82.0% from 309 flights
- February 2025: 81.0% from 277 flights
- March 2025: 73.5% from 298 flights
- April 2025: 63.6% from 262 flights
- May 2025: 51.1% from 255 flights
- June 2025: 61.6% from 265 flights
- July 2025: 60.2% from 292 flights
- August 2025: 61.6% from 284 flights
- September 2025: 75.7% from 289 flights
- October 2025: 65.1% from 307 flights
- November 2025: 68.6% from 310 flights
- December 2025: 73.3% from 297 flights
- January 2026: 78.5% from 301 flights
- February 2026: 76.4% from 280 flights
- March 2026: 68.2% from 300 flights
- April 2026: 79.2% from 285 flights
- May 2026: 81.6% from 305 flights
- June 2026: 69.4% from 322 flights
- July 2026: 64.7% from 325 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 71.8% against 69.7% in the 12 months before — improving by 2.1 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,983 DFW → EWR 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