Carrier route record

WNBDL→DEN

Southwest Airlines · Hartford to Denver

Flights: 194
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 21%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on BDL to DEN 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 194 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on BDL to DEN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 190 completed flights

Avg delay

58 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.03%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

84.1%

Every carrier on BDL to DEN, 922 flights

These figures cover 194 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.

Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on BDL to DEN

Southwest flew 194 of the 922 flights on BDL to DEN, about 21% of it. Its 80.0% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 84.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.2% to Southwest at 80.0%.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on BDL to DEN
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	728	85.2%	68 min	1.10%	A
Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample	194	80.0%	58 min	1.03%	B

Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

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

5am–8am98 flights85.7%
8am–11am33 flights84.8%
11am–2pm33 flights67.7%
2pm–5pm22 flights—
5pm–8pm8 flights—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 67.7% on time against 85.7% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 98 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on BDL to DEN through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights82.2%
Oct–Dec 202568 flights83.8%
Jan–Mar 202634 flights65.6%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 80.0% on time across 194 flights.

Southwest on BDL to DEN did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 83.8% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 65.6%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 65 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.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 68.6%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 2,194 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.

Carrier
45%
Late-arriving aircraft
40%
National Airspace System
15%

40% 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 2,194 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 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 2,194 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 989 of the 2,194 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.03% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.03%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.4% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,671 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 52.9% on time across 194 flights, 27 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 27 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 194 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 Southwest on BDL to DEN

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 194 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 190 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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