Carrier route record
WNDEN→CVG
Southwest Airlines · Denver to Cincinnati
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on DEN to CVG sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 727 at 84.4% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on DEN to CVG runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 71 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
45 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
79.8%
Every carrier on DEN to CVG, 1,496 flights
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on DEN to CVG
Southwest flew 364 of the 1,496 flights on DEN to CVG, about 24% of it. Its 70.2% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.4% to Allegiant at 69.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 Airlines (this page)thin 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.
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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 30 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am72 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm109 flights80.4%
- 2pm–5pm183 flights57.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.5% of the time, against 57.2% for the afternoon window. That is 30 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 183 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DEN to CVG through the year
June is the worst month at 46.7% on time, 34 points below May, the best at 80.6%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 58.0%, a spread of 31 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on DEN to CVG runs when it is late
The 107 late arrivals split 45 under half an hour, 44 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 18 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early32 flights8.9%
- Within 15 min220 flights61.3%
- 15–29 min late45 flights12.5%
- 30–59 min late44 flights12.3%
- 1–2 hours late13 flights3.6%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 359 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
38 of 135 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on DEN to CVG
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 December 2025, 5 hours 10 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 12 December 2025 | 5 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 July 2026 | 3 hours 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 June 2026 | 3 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 March 2026 | 2 hours 56 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 December 2025 | 2 hours 27 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 4,792 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,792 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 51 to one. The split is drawn from 4,792 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,740 of the 4,792 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.0% 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 45 minutes, 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.2% on time across 364 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 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 DEN to CVG
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 364 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 70.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 359 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to CVG, every carrier
- Southwest on CVG to DEN, the return leg
- United Airlines on DEN to CVG84.4%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to CVG80.9%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.