Route profile
DFW→SFO
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Dallas–Fort Worth to San Francisco, 1,464 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 2% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 12,706 flights. How this is calculated
DFW → SFO arrives on time 64.3% of the time; the return trip, SFO → DFW, arrives on time 74.9% of the time, a 10.5-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DFW → SFO spends 30.5 minutes on the ground on a 1,464-mile trip: 20.7 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DFW and 9.8 minutes from touchdown to gate at SFO.
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 95% of 3,357 comparable routes.
75.4% on time in a typical October, against 49.5% 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.
Why DFW → SFO flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DFW → SFO cancelled 231 of 12,706 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 55. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 80.5% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 68 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 231 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.
186 cancellations, 80.5% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
42 cancellations, 18.2% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
3 cancellations, 1.3% 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.
231 coded cancellations were recorded on DFW → SFO; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
74 min late
against a median of 2 min late
DFW → SFO has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 2 min late, but the worst tenth are 72 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 12,706 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SFO after arriving from DFW.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 52% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 35% | Likely to miss |
| 60 min | 25% | High risk |
| 90 min | 13% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 7.4% | 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 1.82% of the time and diverts 0.08% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 12,465 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 74 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 12,706 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DFW → SFO flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 83.0% of the time, against 54.3% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 28.7 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 86.7% on time from 526 flights
- 7 AM: 84.6% on time from 1,564 flights
- 8 AM: 77.4% on time from 812 flights
- 9 AM: 65.0% on time from 483 flights
- 10 AM: 81.1% on time from 164 flights
- 11 AM: 63.9% on time from 1,055 flights
- 12 PM: 73.0% on time from 197 flights
- 1 PM: 65.5% on time from 761 flights
- 2 PM: 57.6% on time from 242 flights
- 3 PM: 61.2% on time from 782 flights
- 4 PM: 49.4% on time from 521 flights
- 5 PM: 59.4% on time from 939 flights
- 6 PM: 58.2% on time from 535 flights
- 7 PM: 58.6% on time from 1,407 flights
- 8 PM: 48.8% on time from 1,189 flights
- 9 PM: 56.1% on time from 719 flights
- 10 PM: 52.6% on time from 766 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DFW → SFO 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 DFW → SFO. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DFW → SFO, at 44.0%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 83.0% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 54.3%.
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 1.7 times at SFO. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: DFW 10.4% against 1.5%, SFO 1.5% against 0.9%. 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 | SFO |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 10.4% | 1.5% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.5% | 0.9% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 56.4% | 73.0% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 74.4% | 79.8% |
| Departures in bad weather | 72,822 | 36,006 |
United Airlines (4.8% cancelled against 10.6% for the other carriers at DFW) and Frontier Airlines (5.9% cancelled against 10.5% 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% |
| Frontier Airlines | 2,192 | 5.9%below the others | 10.5% |
| American Airlines | 38,491 | 10.0%about level | 10.9% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from DFW and SFO, 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), SFO, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 9,404 | 61.9% | 1.97% | 3 min | 13.9% |
| United Airlines | 2,509 | 73.9% | 0.80% | -4 min | 11.1% |
| Frontier Airlines | 767 | 62.3% | 3.39% | 3 min | 13.8% |
American Airlines flew 74.2% of the 12,680 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 3.39% of its flights here against 0.80% for United Airlines.
United Airlines arrived on time 12.0 percentage points more often than American Airlines on this route.
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 11.0 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 69.6%
- Feb: 71.3%
- Mar: 67.7%
- Apr: 55.7%
- May: 52.1%
- Jun: 49.5%
- Jul: 54.9%
- Aug: 64.4%
- Sep: 75.4%
- Oct: 75.4%
- Nov: 74.6%
- Dec: 70.5%
June is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 25.9 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 61.4% from 361 flights
- August 2023: 66.4% from 364 flights
- September 2023: 71.4% from 324 flights
- October 2023: 74.0% from 352 flights
- November 2023: 84.4% from 335 flights
- December 2023: 77.9% from 331 flights
- January 2024: 64.1% from 293 flights
- February 2024: 62.7% from 287 flights
- March 2024: 56.6% from 331 flights
- April 2024: 47.8% from 326 flights
- May 2024: 40.5% from 340 flights
- June 2024: 55.1% from 356 flights
- July 2024: 56.3% from 388 flights
- August 2024: 68.9% from 371 flights
- September 2024: 78.3% from 332 flights
- October 2024: 81.8% from 370 flights
- November 2024: 68.0% from 338 flights
- December 2024: 66.7% from 329 flights
- January 2025: 74.3% from 323 flights
- February 2025: 76.7% from 291 flights
- March 2025: 66.8% from 344 flights
- April 2025: 69.8% from 347 flights
- May 2025: 66.4% from 364 flights
- June 2025: 58.4% from 362 flights
- July 2025: 56.5% from 368 flights
- August 2025: 57.0% from 336 flights
- September 2025: 76.4% from 302 flights
- October 2025: 69.9% from 354 flights
- November 2025: 71.3% from 326 flights
- December 2025: 67.0% from 337 flights
- January 2026: 70.3% from 312 flights
- February 2026: 74.4% from 291 flights
- March 2026: 79.3% from 337 flights
- April 2026: 49.0% from 337 flights
- May 2026: 48.5% from 401 flights
- June 2026: 36.9% from 424 flights
- July 2026: 46.6% from 422 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 60.9% against 69.2% in the 12 months before — declining by 8.3 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 12,706 DFW → SFO 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