Route reliability record
DEN→CVG
Denver to Cincinnati
- Flights
- 1,496
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,069 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 3 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 about an hour on average. That rests on 1,496 DEN to CVG flights, of which United Airlines flew 727 at 84.4% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to CVG: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.4%, against 79.8% 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
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,485 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.74%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
84.4% on time across 727 flights
These figures cover 1,496 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to CVG
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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 | 84.4% | 60 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 379 | 80.9% | 60 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 70.2% | 45 min | 1.37% | C |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 26 | 69.2% | 71 min | 0.00% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 84.4%, 4 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.
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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 | 84.1% | 84.4% | 0.41% | 8am–11am, Thu | UA 1978 09:40 |
| 2. DEN → CVGDenver to Cincinnati | Frontier Airlines | 80.3% | 80.9% | 0.79% | 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 22 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am49 flights87.8%
- 8am–11am509 flights89.8%
- 11am–2pm119 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm326 flights67.5%
- 5pm–8pm426 flights77.4%
- 8pm–5am67 flights70.1%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.8% of the time, against 67.5% for the afternoon window. That is 22 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 509 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to CVG 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 CVG, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 89.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 67.5%, a wide gap of 22.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am87.8%
- 8–11am89.8%
- 11am–2pm81.2%
- 2–5pm67.5%
- 5–8pm77.4%
- 8pm–5am70.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 70.6%. February is the strongest month at 94.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 23 points. October was the busiest month here, with 139 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.1%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 to one. The split is drawn from 16,501 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, 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
5.2% 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 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.
The return leg runs 82.7% on time across 1,498 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 1,496 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 March 70.6%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,485 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to CVG questions
How often is DEN to CVG 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 20.2% of the 1,496 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to CVG?
United Airlines leads at 84.4% on time across 727 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 80.9%, a gap of 4 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 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 67.5%, 22 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 March delays on DEN to CVG?
March is the weakest month at 70.6% on time, compared with 94.0% in February. Across the year that is 23 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 CVG84.4%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to CVG80.9%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to CVG70.2%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- ORD to CVG, a related route72.1%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- United Airlines on-time record84.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record80.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record70.2%
- 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 CVG and CVG 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.