Route reliability record
DEN→BIS
Denver to Bismarck
- Flights
- 1,433
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 516 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,433 DEN to BIS flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly DEN to BIS: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.2%, against 76.9% 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
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,420 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.70%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
76.9% on time across 1,433 flights
These figures cover 1,433 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 DEN to BIS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,433 | 76.9% | 86 min | 0.70% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to BIS
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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am21 flights—
- 8am–11am363 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm237 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm126 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm363 flights69.5%
- 8pm–5am323 flights75.0%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.7% of the time, against 69.5% for the evening window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 363 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to BIS 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 DEN to BIS, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 84.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.5%, a wide gap of 15.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am84.7%
- 11am–2pm80.7%
- 2–5pm72.0%
- 5–8pm69.5%
- 8pm–5am75.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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.
July is the worst month at 66.1% on time, 26 points below November, the best at 92.0%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 137 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.8%, a spread of 14 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 28,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 28,037 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 28,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.70%, 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
11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 516 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.9% on time across 1,433 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,433 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 BIS 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 92.0% on time and July 66.1%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,420 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to BIS questions
How often is DEN to BIS delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.1% of the 1,433 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DEN to BIS compared with the rest of the country?
76.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DEN to BIS?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.5%, 15 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 July delays on DEN to BIS?
July is the weakest month at 66.1% on time, compared with 92.0% in November. Across the year that is 26 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
- BIS to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- MSP to BIS, a related route81.9%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record76.9%
- 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. DEN to BIS and BIS to DEN 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.