Airport month record

DENJAN

Denver International in January 2026

Departures: 24,484
Month: January 2026
National, same month: 79.2%
Carriers: 9

Historical statistics for January 2026, not live status or a forecast for this year’s January. For today’s conditions at DEN, see live FAA status.

DEN in January lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 79.2%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 24,484 flights, of which United Airlines flew 8,467 at 83.7% on time.

United Airlines is the most reliable of the six carriers covered here at 83.7% on time across 8,467 flights.

On time

82.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 24,008 completed departures

Avg delay

60 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.69%

Nationally in January: 4.71%

Whole year

76.3%

DEN across all twelve months

These figures cover 24,484 departures from Denver International in January 2026. On time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the DOT's threshold, and the national comparison uses every US departure in the same month rather than the whole year.

Against the year

January next to DEN's other months

Against DEN's own year, January ran 6 points better than the twelve-month rate of 76.3%, which makes it number four of twelve months, best first. Cancellations are where January stands out: 1.69% of scheduled departures were called off, 2.1 times the airport's rate across the year. Either side of it, December ran 74.3% on time and February 82.4%, so a trip moved by a few weeks would have landed in a worse stretch.

DEN month by month
Month	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
July 2025	29,433	63.0%	77 min	1.48%	D
August 2025	28,084	70.1%	69 min	0.73%	C+
September 2025	26,548	79.4%	54 min	0.12%	B+
October 2025	27,763	80.8%	52 min	0.13%	B+
November 2025	25,280	84.7%	62 min	1.44%	B
December 2025	26,026	74.3%	68 min	0.64%	C+
January 2026 (this page)	24,484	82.3%	60 min	1.69%	B
February 2026	23,046	82.4%	69 min	0.88%	B+
March 2026	27,089	76.8%	72 min	1.50%	B
April 2026	25,345	82.5%	56 min	0.27%	B+
May 2026	27,406	76.4%	58 min	0.28%	B+
June 2026	28,634	67.1%	64 min	0.41%	C+

Departure window

The best time of day to leave DEN in January

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 10 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am1,711 flights89.0%
8am–11am5,028 flights86.1%
11am–2pm5,978 flights82.5%
2pm–5pm3,648 flights81.6%
5pm–8pm5,402 flights78.8%
8pm–5am2,717 flights78.9%

Scale runs 70% 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 78.8% for the evening window. That is 10 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 5,978 flights scheduled in it.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 93.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.6%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Carrier by carrier

Which airlines ran best at DEN in January

The six carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

Carriers at DEN in January 2026
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	8,467	83.7%	52 min	1.13%	B
Southwest Airlines	6,546	83.2%	41 min	1.48%	B
SkyWest Airlines	6,156	80.9%	81 min	2.06%	B
Frontier Airlines	1,568	78.6%	59 min	1.40%	B
Delta Air Lines	811	83.3%	66 min	1.73%	B
American Airlines	646	78.4%	125 min	8.20%	B−
Alaska Airlinesthin sample	173	83.1%	51 min	0.58%	B+
JetBlue Airwaysthin sample	68	78.1%	63 min	5.88%	B−
Envoy Airthin sample	46	67.4%	49 min	0.00%	C+

American Airlines cancels 8.2% 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

Busiest routes out of DEN in January

Routes from DEN in January 2026
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DEN to PHX · Phoenix	736	80.2%	61 min	0.95%	B+
DEN to SLC · Salt Lake City	634	83.6%	48 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to LAX · Los Angeles	600	84.1%	47 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to LAS · Las Vegas	564	83.3%	57 min	0.18%	B+
DEN to SAN · San Diego	500	81.9%	53 min	0.20%	B+
DEN to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	479	78.0%	93 min	8.14%	B−
DEN to SFO · San Francisco	435	80.7%	89 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to ATL · Atlanta	431	83.0%	57 min	1.86%	B
DEN to SEA · Seattle	430	83.0%	45 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to AUS · Austin	428	85.8%	52 min	2.80%	A
DEN to MSP · Minneapolis	409	80.8%	52 min	0.49%	B+
DEN to MCO · Orlando	390	83.3%	55 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to ORD · Chicago	389	71.3%	80 min	0.26%	C+
DEN to COS · Colorado Springs	387	79.3%	63 min	1.29%	B
DEN to IAH · Houston	384	86.9%	47 min	0.26%	A+
DEN to LGA · New York	381	82.0%	52 min	3.67%	B−
DEN to MCI · Kansas Citythin sample	303	85.1%	48 min	0.33%	A+
DEN to IAD · Washingtonthin sample	279	89.2%	55 min	3.94%	A−
DEN to SNA · Santa Anathin sample	275	88.0%	49 min	0.00%	A+
DEN to PDX · Portlandthin sample	269	83.2%	58 min	0.37%	B+
DEN to SMF · Sacramentothin sample	264	81.7%	44 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to BOS · Bostonthin sample	260	85.4%	62 min	4.62%	A−
DEN to BNA · Nashvillethin sample	256	85.5%	41 min	5.47%	A−
DEN to BOI · Boisethin sample	256	82.8%	47 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to TUS · Tucsonthin sample	255	78.8%	41 min	0.00%	B+

Delay causes

What held DEN up in January

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 256,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
39%
Late-arriving aircraft
35%
National Airspace System
21%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 256,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 256,059 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.69% against a national 4.71%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.25%.

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 7.6% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

What to do with this

Flying from DEN in January

For a January trip through DEN: expect 82.3% on time and 1.69% cancelled, going by January 2026. The 5am–8am window was the strongest part of the day.

Denver International (DEN), the whole year
DEN in July63.0%
DEN in August70.1%
DEN in September79.4%
DEN in October80.8%
DEN in November84.7%
DEN in December74.3%
DEN in February82.4%
DEN in March76.8%
DEN in April82.5%
DEN in May76.4%
DEN in June67.1%

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures