Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport has regained the crown of the United States airport with the most nonstop destinations. Today, 239 nonstop destinations are offered from the Texas city.
Most nonstop destinations of any U.S. airport
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, DFW was the United States airport that offered the most nonstop destinations in the country for a brief period. Now, the Dallas airport is back on top. Currently, 239 destinations have nonstop flights from DFW, seven more destinations than the next highest airport on the list. Chicago O’Hare International Airport, a hub for two major U.S. airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines, offers 232 nonstop destinations. The following two airports on the list are also significant hubs for American carriers. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is home to Delta Air Lines operations, and Denver International Airport is United’s fastest-growing hub. Each city has 208 nonstop destinations offered.
American Airlines, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, offers flights to 220 destinations from Dallas. A search of Cirium’s Diio Mi platform revealed that today, American operated 792 departures and 793 arrivals at DFW. But today was not the busiest day of the week for American at DFW. In fact, on Thursday, American will operate 795 departures from DFW. Delta and United, the other two of the big three American carriers, each offered less than 35 departures from the Dallas airport today.
United Airlines, one of the three major U.S. airlines, offers less than 35 daily departures from DFW. Photo: Lukas Souza | Simple Flying
American’s busiest routes from DFW are not only to its hubs around the country. American serves two cities 14 times per day from DFW, Los Angeles (LAX) and Austin (AUS), the most of any route in the airline’s services. The next busiest route in American’s DFW departures is DFW-LGA, with 13 daily frequencies. DFW-LGA has ten more daily flights than DFW-JFK, an American Airlines hub. American’s most served international destination today was Cancun (CUN), with seven flights.
International destinations
Though DFW offers the most nonstop destinations of any airport in the United States, it is nowhere near the leader for international destinations, JFK. New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport has flights to 108 international destinations this month. DFW offers less than half the number of international destinations JFK offers, with just 51. 18 of the 51 international destinations served from DFW are in Mexico. Hartsfield Jackson-Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), and Houston George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) all offer more international connections than DFW.
American Airlines has more than 700 daily departures from DFW. Photo: Lukas Souza | Simple Flying
DFW lags so far behind other major U.S. airports because of the limited travel between the United States and Asia. Several Asian hubs are still under COVID-19 restrictions, like Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. This also affects LAX significantly, but the airport sees significant traffic from airlines in other regions. Surely, American Airlines hopes that travel across the Pacific will return soon. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, American’s leaders announced that DFW would be the airline’s trans-pacific hub, citing that increasing costs and competition at LAX made it difficult to continue operating out of the West Coast airport.
