Carrier performance at one airport

OO→DEN

SkyWest Airlines at Denver International

Departures: 75,349
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Routes: 25
Rank here: #2 of 9

SkyWest Airlines at Denver lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 75,349 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 11,579 at 83.1% on time.

Measured against the airport rather than the country, SkyWest Airlines runs 4 points ahead of the 76.3% weighted average across all carriers at DEN. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.

On time

80.0%

74,166 completed departures

Avg delay

77 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.13%

At DEN, this carrier only

Rank here

Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at DEN

These figures cover 75,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Against the competition

Every carrier at DEN, ranked

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 83.1% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 68.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,249 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance of all carriers departing DEN
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	11,579	83.1%	77 min	1.33%	B
SkyWest Airlines (this page)	75,349	80.0%	77 min	1.13%	B
United Airlines	107,305	78.4%	64 min	0.46%	B+
Frontier Airlines	22,581	78.0%	67 min	0.73%	B+
American Airlines	8,874	76.8%	104 min	2.12%	B
Alaska Airlines	2,700	76.0%	56 min	0.89%	B+
Allegiant Air	395	70.3%	110 min	1.27%	C
Southwest Airlines	88,768	69.4%	54 min	0.70%	C+
JetBlue Airways	1,249	68.9%	89 min	2.80%	C

The spread between Delta and JetBlue is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Route by route

Where SkyWest Airlines flies from DEN

SkyWest Airlines operates 25 routes out of DEN with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.

SkyWest Airlines routes from DEN
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DEN to COS · Colorado Springs	3,283	76.5%	72 min	1.89%	B
DEN to ASE · Aspen	2,715	74.8%	96 min	5.23%	C−
DEN to CPR · Casper	2,570	77.4%	79 min	1.01%	B
DEN to RAP · Rapid City	2,125	78.6%	70 min	1.41%	B
DEN to SAF · Santa Fe	1,621	81.7%	75 min	1.11%	B
DEN to LNK · Lincoln	1,593	76.3%	87 min	0.82%	B+
DEN to IDA · Idaho Falls	1,535	80.4%	67 min	0.72%	B+
DEN to BIS · Bismarck	1,502	76.2%	88 min	0.73%	B+
DEN to GJT · Grand Junction	1,496	80.5%	62 min	1.74%	B
DEN to DRO · Durango	1,460	82.0%	73 min	1.51%	B
DEN to SLC · Salt Lake City	1,399	79.4%	64 min	0.86%	B+
DEN to FSD · Sioux Falls	1,307	84.7%	79 min	1.07%	B
DEN to SGF · Springfield	1,284	78.2%	65 min	0.70%	B+
DEN to ICT · Wichita	1,263	86.4%	62 min	0.63%	A+
DEN to OKC · Oklahoma City	1,256	82.4%	68 min	0.48%	B+
DEN to LAX · Los Angeles	1,231	80.1%	82 min	0.81%	B+
DEN to MAF · Midland	1,197	81.1%	74 min	0.84%	B+
DEN to MOT · Minot	1,143	75.3%	80 min	1.05%	B
DEN to TUL · Tulsa	1,129	85.4%	69 min	0.62%	A+
DEN to SGU · St. George	1,086	79.7%	79 min	0.28%	B+
DEN to BIL · Billings	1,052	81.7%	52 min	1.24%	B
DEN to LIT · Little Rock	1,048	81.1%	88 min	0.76%	B+
DEN to GUC · Gunnison	995	81.3%	95 min	0.80%	B+
DEN to DSM · Des Moines	936	88.2%	71 min	1.07%	A
DEN to COD · Cody	932	79.4%	75 min	0.97%	B+

Departure window

Best time of day for this operation

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am2,605 flights89.0%
8am–11am14,774 flights86.8%
11am–2pm18,563 flights82.9%
2pm–5pm12,370 flights78.5%
5pm–8pm13,271 flights70.9%
8pm–5am13,766 flights77.0%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.0% of the time, against 70.9% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 18,563 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Seasonal pattern

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.November best, July worst

July is the worst month at 68.7% on time, 21 points below November, the best at 90.1%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 6,751 flights.

Delay causes

What holds this operation up

Carrier
37%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
National Airspace System
20%
Extreme weather
11%
Security
0%

Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 1,139,456 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.13% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.44%.

7.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

75,349 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 90.1% on time and July 68.7%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 74,166 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

SkyWest Airlines at DEN

How often is SkyWest Airlines at DEN delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.0% of the 75,349 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on SkyWest Airlines at DEN?

Delta Air Lines leads at 83.1% on time across 11,579 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 68.9%, a gap of 14 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on SkyWest Airlines at DEN?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 70.9%, 18 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.

How bad are July delays on SkyWest Airlines at DEN?

July is the weakest month at 68.7% on time, compared with 90.1% in November. Across the year that is 21 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures