Carrier performance at one airport

OO→DEN

SkyWest Airlines at Denver International

Departures: 75,223
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Routes: 25
Rank here: #2 of 9

SkyWest Airlines at Denver lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 75,223 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 11,497 at 83.1% on time.

Measured against the airport rather than the country, SkyWest Airlines runs 4 points ahead of the 76.7% 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

80.4%

74,087 completed departures

Avg delay

78 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.09%

At DEN, this carrier only

Rank here

Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at DEN

These figures cover 75,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 65.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,258 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	11,497	83.1%	75 min	1.37%	B
SkyWest Airlines (this page)	75,223	80.4%	78 min	1.09%	B
United Airlines	107,895	78.9%	65 min	0.41%	B+
Frontier Airlines	22,870	78.5%	68 min	0.77%	B+
Alaska Airlines	2,879	78.1%	57 min	0.66%	B+
American Airlines	8,936	77.1%	105 min	1.97%	B
Allegiant Air	373	76.5%	94 min	0.54%	B+
Southwest Airlines	88,424	69.5%	54 min	0.72%	C+
JetBlue Airways	1,258	65.7%	93 min	4.61%	C−

JetBlue Airways cancels 4.6% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.

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	3,338	76.6%	73 min	1.65%	B
DEN to ASE · Aspen	2,742	74.2%	96 min	5.11%	C−
DEN to CPR · Casper	2,629	77.7%	82 min	0.95%	B+
DEN to RAP · Rapid City	2,081	78.4%	80 min	1.25%	B
DEN to SAF · Santa Fe	1,684	81.0%	79 min	1.01%	B
DEN to LNK · Lincoln	1,585	77.1%	82 min	0.69%	B+
DEN to GJT · Grand Junction	1,550	80.9%	70 min	1.87%	B
DEN to DRO · Durango	1,471	82.6%	74 min	1.36%	B
DEN to BIS · Bismarck	1,433	76.9%	86 min	0.70%	B+
DEN to IDA · Idaho Falls	1,417	82.6%	73 min	0.35%	B+
DEN to SLC · Salt Lake City	1,386	80.2%	66 min	0.58%	B+
DEN to SGF · Springfield	1,318	79.3%	64 min	0.83%	B+
DEN to FSD · Sioux Falls	1,313	85.5%	78 min	0.99%	A+
DEN to ICT · Wichita	1,300	85.3%	65 min	0.69%	A+
DEN to MAF · Midland	1,222	81.8%	75 min	0.82%	B+
DEN to LAX · Los Angeles	1,205	78.5%	81 min	0.75%	B+
DEN to TUL · Tulsa	1,172	86.1%	65 min	0.68%	A+
DEN to OKC · Oklahoma City	1,134	84.8%	67 min	0.71%	B+
DEN to SGU · St. George	1,072	80.0%	78 min	0.56%	B+
DEN to MOT · Minot	1,055	75.6%	83 min	1.14%	B
DEN to BIL · Billings	1,049	81.1%	71 min	1.14%	B
DEN to GUC · Gunnison	994	80.5%	93 min	0.80%	B+
DEN to LIT · Little Rock	986	85.7%	78 min	0.61%	A+
DEN to COD · Cody	934	80.0%	75 min	0.64%	B+
DEN to ABQ · Albuquerque	908	84.4%	67 min	0.44%	B+

Flight by flight

SkyWest Airlines flight numbers from DEN

108 SkyWest Airlines flight numbers leaving DEN flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.

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 17 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am2,756 flights89.0%
8am–11am14,758 flights87.1%
11am–2pm18,229 flights83.0%
2pm–5pm12,584 flights79.1%
5pm–8pm12,972 flights72.0%
8pm–5am13,924 flights77.0%

Scale runs 65% to 95%.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.0% of the time, against 72.0% for the evening window. That is 17 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 18,229 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Seasonal pattern

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

August is the worst month at 70.6% on time, 20 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 6,688 flights.

Delay causes

What holds this operation up

Carrier
38%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
National Airspace System
18%
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 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 1,131,240 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.09% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.42%.

7.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

75,223 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 August 70.6%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 74,087 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.6% of the 75,223 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 11,497 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 65.7%, a gap of 17 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 72.0%, 17 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 August delays on SkyWest Airlines at DEN?

August is the weakest month at 70.6% on time, compared with 90.1% in November. Across the year that is 20 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures