Route reliability record
DEN→CVG
Denver to Cincinnati
- Flights
- 1,520
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,069 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four 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 1,520 DEN to CVG flights, of which United Airlines flew 728 at 82.7% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to CVG: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.2%, against 77.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,506 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.86%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
82.7% on time across 728 flights
These figures cover 1,520 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
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to CVG
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 | 728 | 82.7% | 54 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 402 | 77.4% | 70 min | 1.00% | B |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 26 | 73.1% | 72 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 67.6% | 50 min | 1.37% | C |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 82.7%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to CVG
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Denver to Cincinnati
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. DEN → CVGDenver to Cincinnati | United Airlines | 82.2% | 82.7% | 0.55% | 8am–11am, Mon | UA 1978 09:40 |
| 2. DEN → CVGDenver to Cincinnati | Frontier Airlines | 76.6% | 77.4% | 1.00% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 25 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am39 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am533 flights88.9%
- 11am–2pm132 flights74.8%
- 2pm–5pm261 flights65.2%
- 5pm–8pm432 flights74.2%
- 8pm–5am123 flights65.0%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.7% of the time, against 65.0% for the overnight window. That is 25 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 533 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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 59.6% on time, 34 points below February, the best at 94.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 149 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.3%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 19,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
50% 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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 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 19,403 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 89.7% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.86%, 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 actually costs
6.8% 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 1,069 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. 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 81.6% on time across 1,521 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,520 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 CVG 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 94.0% on time and July 59.6%, a swing of 34 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,506 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to CVG questions
How often is DEN to CVG 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 22.4% of the 1,520 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to CVG?
United Airlines leads at 82.7% on time across 728 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 77.4%, 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 DEN to CVG?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.0%, 25 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 CVG?
July is the weakest month at 59.6% on time, compared with 94.0% in February. Across the year that is 34 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
- CVG to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- United Airlines on DEN to CVG82.7%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to CVG77.4%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to CVG67.6%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.7%
- ORD to CVG, a related route72.2%
- DEN to SLC, a related route77.5%
- United Airlines on-time record82.7%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.4%
- Allegiant Air on-time record73.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DEN to CVG and CVG to DEN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DEN to CVG’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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.