Route reliability record
CVG→DEN
Cincinnati to Denver
- Flights
- 1,498
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,069 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,498 CVG to DEN flights, of which United Airlines flew 727 at 87.2% on time.
Best time to fly CVG to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Sunday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.4% of the time and Sunday flights 87.8%, against 82.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 54 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,479 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.80%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
87.2% on time across 727 flights
These figures cover 1,498 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CVG to DEN
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 727 | 87.2% | 78 min | 0.55% | A+ |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 26 | 84.6% | 35 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 381 | 82.0% | 87 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 74.2% | 51 min | 1.37% | C |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 87.2%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on CVG 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Cincinnati to Denver
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CVG → DENCincinnati to Denver | United Airlines | 86.7% | 87.2% | 0.55% | 8am–11am, Sun | UA 1666 09:00 |
| 2. CVG → DENCincinnati to Denver | Frontier Airlines | 81.4% | 82.0% | 0.79% | 5am–8am, Sun | F9 3725 20:36 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 16 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am147 flights88.4%
- 8am–11am406 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm208 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm474 flights83.3%
- 5pm–8pm118 flights72.6%
- 8pm–5am145 flights73.6%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.4% of the time, against 72.6% for the evening window. That is 16 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 474 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CVG 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 CVG to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 72.6%, a wide gap of 15.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.4%
- 8–11am87.3%
- 11am–2pm80.1%
- 2–5pm83.3%
- 5–8pm72.6%
- 8pm–5am73.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 69.4% on time, against 90.6% in November. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 140 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.4%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 18,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 17,942 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 88.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.80%, below the national 1.89% 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 actually costs
5.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,069 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 79.8% on time across 1,496 flights, within 3 points 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 1,498 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. November runs 90.6% on time and December 69.4%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,479 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CVG to DEN questions
How often is CVG to DEN delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.3% of the 1,498 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CVG to DEN?
United Airlines leads at 87.2% on time across 727 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 82.0%, a gap of 5 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CVG to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.6%, 16 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 CVG to DEN?
December is the weakest month at 69.4% on time, compared with 90.6% in November. Across the year that is 21 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 CVG — the return legseparate record
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on CVG to DEN87.2%
- Frontier Airlines on CVG to DEN82.0%
- Southwest Airlines on CVG to DEN74.2%
- CVG to ORD, a related route70.8%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- CVG to ATL, a related route85.4%
- United Airlines on-time record87.2%
- Allegiant Air on-time record84.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record82.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. CVG to DEN and DEN to CVG are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed CVG to DEN’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.