Carrier route record

OOBZN→DEN

SkyWest Airlines · Bozeman to Denver

Flights: 393
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 14%
Carriers: 3

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

SkyWest on BZN to DEN lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 393 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,163 at 78.8% on time.

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

On time

77.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 388 completed flights

Avg delay

71 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.27%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

76.9%

Every carrier on BZN to DEN, 2,730 flights

These figures cover 393 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

SkyWest against every carrier on BZN to DEN

SkyWest flew 393 of the 2,730 flights on BZN to DEN, about 14% of it. Its 77.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.8% to Southwest at 74.6%.

The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on BZN to DEN
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	1,163	78.8%	73 min	0.43%	B+
SkyWest Airlines (this page)	393	77.8%	71 min	1.27%	B
Southwest Airlines	1,174	74.6%	57 min	0.26%	C+

No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 78.8%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

Departure window

When SkyWest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 31 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am233 flights89.6%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm60 flights65.0%
5pm–8pm100 flights58.2%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.2% on time, against 89.6% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 233 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on BZN to DEN through the year

Jul–Sep 2025155 flights68.8%
Oct–Dec 202589 flights89.4%
Jan–Mar 202621 flights—
Apr–Jun 2026128 flights79.7%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. 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 77.8% on time across 393 flights.

SkyWest on BZN to DEN 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 68.8%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 131 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.3%. 20 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

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 6,065 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
34%
National Airspace System
28%
Late-arriving aircraft
22%
Extreme weather
15%

Extreme weather accounts for 15% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 6,065 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, 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 2,087 of the 6,065 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.27% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

8.0% 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 524 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 88.4% on time across 393 flights, 11 points above 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 11 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 393 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 SkyWest on BZN to DEN

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 393 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 77.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 388 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