Carrier route record
WNBDL→DEN
Southwest Airlines · Hartford to Denver
- Flights
- 160
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 18%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on BDL to DEN sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 160 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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.
Key figures
On time
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 157 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.25%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.6%
Every carrier on BDL to DEN, 887 flights
These figures cover 160 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on BDL to DEN
Southwest flew 160 of the 887 flights on BDL to DEN, about 18% of it. Its 73.9% on time is 9 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.5% to Southwest at 73.9%.
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 727 | 84.5% | 75 min | 0.96% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 160 | 73.9% | 57 min | 1.25% | C |
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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 33 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am56 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am24 flights—
- 11am–2pm42 flights58.5%
- 2pm–5pm22 flights—
- 5pm–8pm16 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. 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 58.5% on time against 91.1% 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 56 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on BDL to DEN through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202568 flights83.8%
- Jan–Mar 202634 flights65.6%
- Jul–Sep 202628 flights—
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 73.9% on time across 160 flights.
Split by quarter, Southwest on BDL to DEN logged 30 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 68 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 34 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 28 flights in Jul–Sep 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 73.9% annual figure is the one to use.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on BDL to DEN runs when it is late
The 41 late arrivals split 18 under half an hour, 10 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 13 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early35 flights22.3%
- Within 15 min81 flights51.6%
- 15–29 min late18 flights11.5%
- 30–59 min late10 flights6.4%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights5.1%
- 2+ hours late5 flights3.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 157 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
8 of 38 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 11 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DEN.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on BDL to DEN
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 February 2026, 3 hours 32 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across February, August, October and March, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 February 2026 | 3 hours 32 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 August 2026 | 3 hours 3 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 8 August 2026 | 2 hours 8 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 21 October 2025 | 2 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 March 2026 | 2 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 2,333 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 2,333 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 44 to one. The split is drawn from 2,333 reported delay minutes.
33% 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 770 minutes out of 2,333, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.25% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.62%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.3% 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 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 56.1% on time across 160 flights, 18 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 18 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 160 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. 160 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 73.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 157 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BDL to DEN, every carrier
- Southwest on DEN to BDL, the return leg
- United Airlines on BDL to DEN84.5%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.