Route reliability record
CID→DEN
Cedar Rapids to Denver
- Flights
- 1,154
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 692 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,154 CID to DEN flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly CID to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.8%, against 78.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,140 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
78.1% on time across 728 flights
These figures cover 1,154 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CID to DEN
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 164 | 83.3% | 66 min | 1.22% | B |
| United Airlines | 728 | 78.1% | 105 min | 1.10% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 262 | 77.8% | 86 min | 0.38% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on CID 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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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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am102 flights94.1%
- 8am–11am365 flights79.7%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm436 flights78.1%
- 5pm–8pm179 flights67.8%
- 8pm–5am72 flights83.3%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.1% of the time, against 67.8% for the evening window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 436 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CID 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 CID to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.8%, a wide gap of 26.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.1%
- 8–11am79.7%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm78.1%
- 5–8pm67.8%
- 8pm–5am83.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
December is the weak month at 65.8% on time, against 87.3% in February. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 130 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.3%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 23,191 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.26%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.7% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 692 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.
The return leg runs 79.2% on time across 1,155 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,154 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. February runs 87.3% on time and December 65.8%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,140 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CID to DEN questions
How often is CID to DEN delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.2% of the 1,154 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is CID to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
78.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CID to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.8%, 26 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 December delays on CID to DEN?
December is the weakest month at 65.8% on time, compared with 87.3% in February. Across the year that is 22 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 CID — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on CID to DEN83.3%
- United Airlines on CID to DEN78.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on CID to DEN77.8%
- CID to ORD, a related route71.6%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- CID to DFW, a related route79.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record83.3%
- United Airlines on-time record78.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.8%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. CID to DEN and DEN to CID 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.