Flight number record

OO 5042

SkyWest Airlines · Denver to Hays

Route: DEN → HYS
Departs: 16:20
Flights: 279
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s OO 5042, check with SkyWest Airlines. SkyWest Airlines flies under contract for larger airlines, so a ticket for this flight may show a different airline code and number.

OO 5042 lands a B−, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 279 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

On time

79.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 268 completed flights

Avg delay

78 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.23%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

7.8%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 279 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Schedule

When OO 5042 flies

OO 5042 flies DEN to HYS without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 16:20, used on 196 of 279 flights, with 16:23 (35 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 16:20196 flights70.3%
Departs 16:2335 flights12.5%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 16:20 departure sits in the 2pm–5pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 72.4%, and OO 5042 runs 7 points better at 79.1%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.

Against the route

OO 5042 next to DEN to HYS

Every carrier on DEN to HYS combined arrived on time 78.7% of the time across 626 flights, so OO 5042 is about level with it. Across its whole network SkyWest Airlines managed 79.0%, close to this flight's figure.

OO 5042 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
OO 5042thin sample	279	79.1%	78 min	3.23%	B−
All SkyWest Airlines on DEN–HYS	626	78.7%	145 min	2.24%	B
All carriers on DEN–HYS	626	78.7%	145 min	2.24%	B
SkyWest Airlines, whole network	852,935	79.0%	88 min	1.77%	B

Across the year

OO 5042 quarter by quarter

OO 5042 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 89.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 61.3%, a swing of 28 points on roughly 70 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Jul–Sep 202565 flights61.3%
Oct–Dec 202567 flights89.4%
Jan–Mar 202664 flights83.9%
Apr–Jun 202683 flights80.8%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, OO 5042 did best on Wednesday at 92.0% on time and worst on Thursday at 73.9%. Each day rests on about 40 flights, so a gap of 18 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why OO 5042 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 4,339 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Late-arriving aircraft
53%
Carrier
26%
National Airspace System
15%
Extreme weather
6%

53% 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 4,339 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 4,339 delay minutes reported on OO 5042.

Cancellations run at 3.23%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

7.8% 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 last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The same number turns up on three other city pairs in the data, including HYS to DEN (39), ROW to DEN (11) and RKS to DEN (6), but none flew often enough under OO 5042 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to DEN to HYS only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 279 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking OO 5042

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on OO 5042: 3.23% of its 279 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs a little over an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

Where to go next

A flight number here means SkyWest Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.

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