Route profile
EWR→DFW
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Newark to Dallas–Fort Worth, 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 17% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,984 flights. How this is calculated
EWR → DFW arrives on time 77.8% of the time; the return trip, DFW → EWR, arrives on time 73.0% of the time, a 4.8-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
EWR → DFW spends 37.1 minutes on the ground on a 1,372-mile trip: 23.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at EWR and 13.9 minutes from touchdown to gate at DFW.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why EWR → DFW flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
EWR → DFW cancelled 299 of 10,984 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 37. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 75.3% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 49 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 299 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.
225 cancellations, 75.3% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
50 cancellations, 16.7% 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, 8.0% 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.
299 coded cancellations were recorded on EWR → DFW; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
58 min late
against a median of 9 min early
EWR → DFW has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 9 min early, but the worst tenth are 67 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 10,984 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at DFW after arriving from EWR.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 35% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 21% | High risk |
| 60 min | 15% | High risk |
| 90 min | 9.6% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 6.5% | 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 2.72% 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 10,611 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 58 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,984 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
EWR → DFW flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 86.2% of the time, against 64.5% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 21.7 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 90.7% on time from 483 flights
- 6 AM: 87.4% on time from 1,259 flights
- 7 AM: 85.4% on time from 541 flights
- 8 AM: 82.7% on time from 902 flights
- 9 AM: 84.4% on time from 783 flights
- 10 AM: 80.3% on time from 292 flights
- 11 AM: 80.1% on time from 320 flights
- 12 PM: 77.7% on time from 1,079 flights
- 1 PM: 80.5% on time from 1,259 flights
- 2 PM: 75.0% on time from 343 flights
- 3 PM: 73.6% on time from 911 flights
- 4 PM: 62.3% on time from 786 flights
- 5 PM: 68.7% on time from 679 flights
- 6 PM: 70.5% on time from 319 flights
- 7 PM: 64.4% on time from 511 flights
- 8 PM: 71.4% on time from 372 flights
- 9 PM: 62.7% on time from 125 flights
- 10 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why EWR → DFW 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 EWR → DFW. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on EWR → DFW, at 42.1%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 86.2% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 64.5%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is DFW, where the flight lands. Its figure counts departures from DFW, so it says more about how that airport copes than about this route. Bad weather cancels 7.0 times the normal rate at DFW against 3.3 times at EWR. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: EWR 6.9% against 2.1%, DFW 10.4% against 1.5%. 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 | EWR | DFW |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 6.9% | 10.4% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 2.1% | 1.5% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 65.8% | 56.4% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.0% | 74.4% |
| Departures in bad weather | 51,613 | 72,822 |
Of the carriers on this route, United Airlines (5.3% cancelled against 8.9% for the other carriers at EWR) cancelled the fewest departures from EWR in bad weather and Spirit Airlines (8.7% cancelled against 6.4% for the other carriers at EWR) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at EWR
All departures from EWR| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 28,226 | 5.3%below the others | 8.9% |
| American Airlines | 2,735 | 7.2%about level | 7.0% |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,882 | 8.7%above the others | 6.4% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from EWR and DFW, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from EWR on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: EWR (airlines), DFW, 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 | 77.0% | 2.58% | -8 min | 10.5% |
| American Airlines | 4,490 | 79.5% | 3.01% | -12 min | 8.9% |
| Spirit Airlines | 996 | 74.6% | 2.41% | -11 min | 10.4% |
United Airlines flew 49.2% of the 10,802 flights listed.
American Airlines arrived on time 4.9 percentage points more often than Spirit Airlines on this route.
Other ways to fly New York to Dallas–Fort Worth
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
| Route | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LGA→DFW New York to Dallas–Fort Worth | 20,144 | 74.7% | 3.23% | -9 min | 44 |
| EWR→DFW this route Newark to Dallas–Fort Worth | 10,984 | 77.8% | 2.72% | -9 min | 51 |
EWR → DFW is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 77.8% on time, against 74.7% for LGA → DFW.
Flying to DFW from the New York area? Compare EWR, LGA, JFK for DFW, 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.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA2728 American Airlines | 6:00 AM | 1,052 | 89.0% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 6.7 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 78.7%
- Feb: 80.7%
- Mar: 82.0%
- Apr: 77.1%
- May: 67.6%
- Jun: 75.3%
- Jul: 69.2%
- Aug: 78.7%
- Sep: 83.4%
- Oct: 83.1%
- Nov: 78.6%
- Dec: 82.4%
May is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 15.8 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 65.4% from 340 flights
- August 2023: 79.3% from 332 flights
- September 2023: 82.7% from 296 flights
- October 2023: 86.8% from 308 flights
- November 2023: 81.3% from 306 flights
- December 2023: 88.1% from 270 flights
- January 2024: 77.6% from 263 flights
- February 2024: 86.9% from 274 flights
- March 2024: 83.4% from 300 flights
- April 2024: 73.5% from 286 flights
- May 2024: 63.3% from 300 flights
- June 2024: 76.0% from 310 flights
- July 2024: 63.9% from 318 flights
- August 2024: 77.9% from 297 flights
- September 2024: 85.9% from 293 flights
- October 2024: 83.2% from 305 flights
- November 2024: 78.5% from 310 flights
- December 2024: 79.3% from 313 flights
- January 2025: 78.6% from 310 flights
- February 2025: 73.5% from 277 flights
- March 2025: 82.5% from 298 flights
- April 2025: 72.2% from 262 flights
- May 2025: 58.4% from 254 flights
- June 2025: 76.2% from 264 flights
- July 2025: 75.6% from 295 flights
- August 2025: 78.8% from 284 flights
- September 2025: 81.7% from 288 flights
- October 2025: 79.1% from 307 flights
- November 2025: 75.9% from 309 flights
- December 2025: 80.1% from 297 flights
- January 2026: 79.9% from 301 flights
- February 2026: 81.7% from 279 flights
- March 2026: 80.0% from 301 flights
- April 2026: 85.1% from 284 flights
- May 2026: 79.0% from 305 flights
- June 2026: 74.0% from 321 flights
- July 2026: 72.6% from 327 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 78.9% against 77.2% in the 12 months before — improving by 1.7 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,984 EWR → DFW 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