Route reliability record
DEN→DRO
Denver to Durango
- Flights
- 2,201
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 251 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,201 DEN to DRO flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,471 at 82.6% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to DRO: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.1%, against 80.2% 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
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,174 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
82.6% on time across 1,471 flights
These figures cover 2,201 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 DRO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 82.6% of the time; United Airlines manages 75.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 730 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,471 | 82.6% | 74 min | 1.36% | B |
| United Airlines | 730 | 75.3% | 61 min | 0.14% | B+ |
SkyWest leads United by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to DRO
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 Durango
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 → DRODenver to Durango | SkyWest Airlines | 81.5% | 82.6% | 1.36% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 5224 13:25 |
| 2. DEN → DRODenver to Durango | United Airlines | 75.2% | 75.3% | 0.14% | 11am–2pm, Thu | UA 1217 11:20 |
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 23 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am523 flights90.5%
- 11am–2pm730 flights83.8%
- 2pm–5pm363 flights75.4%
- 5pm–8pm323 flights67.5%
- 8pm–5am262 flights71.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.5% of the time, against 67.5% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 730 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to DRO 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 DRO, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.5%, a wide gap of 23.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am90.5%
- 11am–2pm83.8%
- 2–5pm75.4%
- 5–8pm67.5%
- 8pm–5am71.6%
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 20 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.
August is the worst month at 68.2% on time, 20 points below November, the best at 87.8%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 205 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 77.0%, a spread of 8 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 30,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 29,619 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 30,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, 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.
At 251 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 82.5% on time across 2,201 flights, within 2 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 2,201 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 DRO 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 87.8% on time and August 68.2%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,174 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to DRO questions
How often is DEN to DRO 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 19.8% of the 2,201 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 DEN to DRO?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 82.6% on time across 1,471 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 75.3%, a gap of 7 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 DRO?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.5%, 23 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 August delays on DEN to DRO?
August is the weakest month at 68.2% on time, compared with 87.8% in November. Across the year that is 20 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
- DRO to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to DRO82.6%
- United Airlines on DEN to DRO75.3%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- DFW to DRO, a related route76.7%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.6%
- United Airlines on-time record75.3%
- 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 DRO and DRO 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.