Carrier route record
WNCLE→DEN
Southwest Airlines · Cleveland to Denver
- Flights
- 604
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 33%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on CLE 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 604 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on CLE 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
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 597 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.33%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
82.0%
Every carrier on CLE to DEN, 1,840 flights
These figures cover 604 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 CLE to DEN
Southwest flew 604 of the 1,840 flights on CLE to DEN, about 33% of it. Its 78.1% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 88.1% to Frontier at 70.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 | 942 | 88.1% | 64 min | 0.11% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 604 | 78.1% | 59 min | 0.33% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 294 | 70.2% | 61 min | 1.70% | C |
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 45 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–8am271 flights95.6%
- 8am–11am7 flights—
- 11am–2pm58 flights84.5%
- 2pm–5pm78 flights73.3%
- 5pm–8pm178 flights50.3%
- 8pm–5am12 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 50.3% on time, against 95.6% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 271 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on CLE to DEN through the year
June is the worst month at 69.5% on time, 17 points below November, the best at 86.7%. 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.7%. 13 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 7,668 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
45% 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 7,668 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 7,668 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 95.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.33%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs
6.7% 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.
The 1,201 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 62.6% on time across 605 flights, 15 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 15 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 604 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 CLE to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 604 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 78.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 597 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to DEN, every carrier
- Southwest on DEN to CLE, the return leg
- United Airlines on CLE to DEN88.1%
- Frontier Airlines on CLE to DEN70.2%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.