Route reliability record
ABQ→DEN
Albuquerque to Denver
- Flights
- 3,216
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 349 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 3,216 ABQ to DEN flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 908 at 86.2% on time.
Best time to fly ABQ to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.8%, against 82.3% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 86.2% on time across 908 flights.
Key figures
On time
82.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,188 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.59%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
86.2% on time across 908 flights
These figures cover 3,216 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ABQ to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 86.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 79.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,463 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 908 | 86.2% | 81 min | 0.55% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 845 | 83.0% | 78 min | 0.83% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,463 | 79.6% | 58 min | 0.48% | B+ |
SkyWest leads Southwest by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on ABQ to DEN
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Albuquerque to Denver
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ABQ → DENAlbuquerque to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 85.7% | 86.2% | 0.55% | 5am–8am, Sat | OO 5834 10:45 |
| 2. ABQ → DENAlbuquerque to Denver | United Airlines | 82.3% | 83.0% | 0.83% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 621 07:00 |
| 3. ABQ → DENAlbuquerque to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 79.2% | 79.6% | 0.48% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. SAF → DENSanta Fe to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 78.1% | 79.0% | 1.19% | 5am–8am, Sat | OO 5495 07:00 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am955 flights93.9%
- 8am–11am429 flights88.1%
- 11am–2pm647 flights86.1%
- 2pm–5pm518 flights66.2%
- 5pm–8pm626 flights70.4%
- 8pm–5am41 flights80.0%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.9% of the time, against 66.2% for the afternoon window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 955 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ABQ to DEN by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ABQ to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 66.2%, a wide gap of 27.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.9%
- 8–11am88.1%
- 11am–2pm86.1%
- 2–5pm66.2%
- 5–8pm70.4%
- 8pm–5am80.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
August is the worst month at 68.3% on time, 23 points below November, the best at 91.5%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 313 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 79.0%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 38,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 13,000 minutes out of 38,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 38,018 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.59%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.6% 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.
At 349 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.3% on time across 3,218 flights, 4 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,216 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DEN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 91.5% on time and August 68.3%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 3,188 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ABQ to DEN questions
How often is ABQ to DEN delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.7% of the 3,216 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 ABQ to DEN?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 86.2% on time across 908 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 79.6%, a gap of 7 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 ABQ to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 66.2%, 28 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 ABQ to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 68.3% on time, compared with 91.5% in November. Across the year that is 23 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to ABQ — the return legseparate record
- Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on ABQ to DEN86.2%
- United Airlines on ABQ to DEN83.0%
- Southwest Airlines on ABQ to DEN79.6%
- ABQ to PHX, a related route81.8%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- ABQ to DFW, a related route81.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record86.2%
- United Airlines on-time record83.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ABQ to DEN and DEN to ABQ are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.