Airport month record

DENMAR

Denver International in March 2026

Departures: 27,089
Month: March 2026
National, same month: 75.7%
Carriers: 9

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

DEN in March lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 75.7%. About one flight in four arrives 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 27,089 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 883 at 84.9% on time.

Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the six carriers covered here at 84.9% on time across 883 flights.

On time

76.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 26,611 completed departures

Avg delay

72 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.50%

Nationally in March: 2.90%

Whole year

76.3%

DEN across all twelve months

These figures cover 27,089 departures from Denver International in March 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

March next to DEN's other months

Against DEN's own year, March ran level with the twelve-month rate of 76.3%, which makes it number seven of twelve months, best first. Cancellations are where March stands out: 1.50% of scheduled departures were called off, 1.9 times the airport's rate across the year. Either side of it, February ran 82.4% on time and April 82.5%, so a trip moved by a few weeks would have landed in a better 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	24,484	82.3%	60 min	1.69%	B
February 2026	23,046	82.4%	69 min	0.88%	B+
March 2026 (this page)	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 March

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am2,045 flights89.4%
8am–11am5,691 flights81.7%
11am–2pm5,668 flights77.2%
2pm–5pm4,078 flights73.7%
5pm–8pm5,945 flights71.9%
8pm–5am3,662 flights73.2%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.4% of the time, against 71.9% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 5,945 flights scheduled in it.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.3%. 20 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Carrier by carrier

Which airlines ran best at DEN in March

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 84.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 69.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 7,473 flights means less than a ten-point one.

Carriers at DEN in March 2026
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	9,196	79.2%	75 min	0.78%	B+
Southwest Airlines	7,473	69.9%	60 min	1.10%	C
SkyWest Airlines	6,312	80.7%	86 min	2.80%	B
Frontier Airlines	2,050	76.5%	76 min	1.46%	B
Delta Air Lines	883	84.9%	75 min	3.06%	B−
American Airlines	748	78.7%	85 min	1.60%	B
Alaska Airlinesthin sample	217	76.4%	58 min	2.30%	B
JetBlue Airwaysthin sample	133	66.4%	106 min	0.75%	C+
Envoy Airthin sample	68	74.6%	72 min	0.00%	C+

Delta Air Lines cancels 3.1% 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 March

Routes from DEN in March 2026
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DEN to PHX · Phoenix	918	77.0%	65 min	0.65%	B+
DEN to SLC · Salt Lake City	668	80.5%	73 min	0.45%	B+
DEN to LAS · Las Vegas	666	79.1%	73 min	0.75%	B+
DEN to LAX · Los Angeles	630	81.6%	62 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	541	77.5%	68 min	0.74%	B+
DEN to SAN · San Diego	537	82.6%	68 min	1.49%	B
DEN to AUS · Austin	515	77.2%	61 min	0.39%	B+
DEN to ORD · Chicago	486	68.4%	109 min	1.65%	C
DEN to MCO · Orlando	468	72.2%	66 min	2.56%	C
DEN to MSP · Minneapolis	462	81.7%	76 min	3.25%	B−
DEN to ATL · Atlanta	460	77.9%	60 min	2.83%	B
DEN to SEA · Seattle	455	69.1%	57 min	1.76%	C
DEN to SFO · San Francisco	448	82.2%	59 min	0.89%	B+
DEN to IAH · Houston	406	78.8%	96 min	0.99%	B+
DEN to LGA · New York	402	60.1%	96 min	5.22%	D−
DEN to COS · Colorado Springs	388	80.2%	73 min	1.03%	B
DEN to MCI · Kansas Citythin sample	339	72.3%	65 min	0.29%	C+
DEN to TPA · Tampathin sample	334	74.5%	80 min	2.40%	C
DEN to STL · St. Louisthin sample	318	77.5%	75 min	0.94%	B+
DEN to ASE · Aspenthin sample	310	83.9%	77 min	9.68%	B−
DEN to BNA · Nashvillethin sample	307	75.0%	71 min	0.65%	B+
DEN to SNA · Santa Anathin sample	302	84.7%	62 min	0.66%	B+
DEN to BOS · Bostonthin sample	300	74.2%	68 min	0.33%	C+
DEN to IAD · Washingtonthin sample	300	75.5%	74 min	0.67%	B+
DEN to SAT · San Antoniothin sample	299	73.8%	60 min	0.33%	C+

Delay causes

What held DEN up in March

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 445,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
42%
Carrier
32%
National Airspace System
22%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

42% 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 445,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 444,521 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.50% against a national 2.90%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 9.5% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

What to do with this

Flying from DEN in March

For a March trip through DEN: expect 76.8% on time and 1.50% cancelled, going by March 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 January82.3%
DEN in February82.4%
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