Connecting at Dallas Love Field: one terminal, 20 gates and no international flights

Last checked 31 October 2026

Is a 45-minute layover enough at Dallas Love Field?

We estimate about 11% of 45-minute connections at Dallas Love Field (DAL) ended in a missed connection between September 2025 and August 2026. How we count a missed connection

Allow 73 minutes for a connection at Dallas Love Field (DAL).

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Dallas Love Field is one terminal with 20 gates, and international travel is barred there, so a connection here is a change between gates on domestic flights. The airport says Delta and Southwest fly there.

At a glance

• One terminal, 20 gates. The airport's FAQ says "a single terminal with 20 gates".
• Security: the airport's pages describe a single TSA checkpoint, open from 4:00 a.m. until the last flight departure, daily, subject to change with passenger counts. There is a dedicated TSA PreCheck lane and two CLEAR queue lines.
• Airlines: the airport names Delta and Southwest. It gives no gate range for either.
• Baggage claim is on the first floor, outside the sterile area.
• No international flights. The airport's customs service covers private aircraft only.

Which airline is where?

The airport's FAQ and its "Airlines at DAL" page name two airlines, Delta and Southwest, and give no concourse or gate range for either. Treat that as the airport's own list and check with your airline. Your boarding pass or your airline's app names your gate.

Changing flights

Both of your flights leave from the same building: the airport has a single terminal, and its pages describe a single TSA checkpoint. The airport's pages do not state whether a passenger changing between two gates stays inside the sterile area the whole way, so confirm with your airline if you booked the two flights separately.

If your flights are on separate tickets, you collect your bags in the baggage claim hall, which is outside the sterile area, check in again with the second airline and go through the TSA checkpoint again. Add the time for all of that.

Security

The checkpoint is open from 4:00 a.m. until the last flight departure, daily, and the airport says the hours are subject to change based on passenger counts. The airport lists a dedicated TSA PreCheck lane: "TSA Precheck" must be clearly visible on your boarding pass. CLEAR has two queue lines at the checkpoint, one for PreCheck CLEAR and one for general boarding. The airport's pages carry no date, so check the live information for the day you fly.

Landing from another country

Dallas Love Field has no international flights. The airport describes a "federally mandated cap of 20 gates and barring of international travel". Its customs service is for general aviation (private aircraft), on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., limited to 10 people. If your first flight is international, you land at another airport and clear passport control there.

What is changing

The airport has started a master-plan study of development over the short, medium and long term (20 years). The page names no gates or dates, so nothing about today's connections changes yet.

Tips

• Look up both airlines on the airport's list before you travel; if either is missing from it, check with your airline.
• Early flights: the checkpoint opens at 4:00 a.m.
• Late flights: the checkpoint is listed as open until the last flight departure, with no clock time. Check the live information.

GateCast grades your connection from A to F on how likely you are to make it. The grade is an estimate. GateCast knows which airlines you're flying but has no gate information, so check your boarding pass and add time for the walk between gates.

How we count a missed connection

The layover times and missed-connection percentages on this page are estimates from our model, built on US DOT records (September 2025 to August 2026), with no guarantee; never book shorter than your airline's minimum connection time. All times and percentages are according to our model.

A missed connection means the real delays and cancellations that day left less time than our estimate of how long the change takes; estimated from US DOT on-time records for September 2025 to August 2026, with no passenger data.

The 45-minute figure is the estimated share of connections at Dallas Love Field (DAL) that ended in a missed connection. The time in the box is the shortest layover after which another 15 minutes lowers the estimated missed-connection rate by less than 1 percentage point, on a curve fitted so that it never rises. The 1 percentage point is a judgement constant that we set. Extra time helps less and less because cancellations and long delays cause missed connections at any gap. Each time is our model's point estimate of where the fitted missed-connection curve levels off, from past flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The curve is calculated at 5-minute steps and joined by straight lines. Giving the time to the minute does not make it more certain: when we re-ran the estimate on 200 resampled sets of days, 95% of the times at Dallas Love Field (DAL) fell between 69 and 75 minutes. At Dallas Love Field (DAL), the estimated missed-connection rate was 6.7% at 73 minutes (and 4.4% at 2 hours) (share of connections, September 2025 to August 2026). We don't give a figure for 30 minutes. A 30-minute connection is close to our own estimate of the time to change planes, a median of 26 minutes in our data, so a percentage would mostly come from that estimate.

Checked 31 October 2026; layover figures checked 1 November 2026. Terminals, gates and airlines change, so confirm with the airport and your airline before you travel.

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