Route reliability record
DEN→DSM
Denver to Des Moines
- Flights
- 2,327
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 589 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,327 DEN to DSM flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 906 at 88.0% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to DSM: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.3%, against 79.9% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 88.0% on time across 906 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,309 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.56%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
88.0% on time across 906 flights
These figures cover 2,327 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 DSM
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 88.0% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 65.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 559 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 906 | 88.0% | 84 min | 0.99% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 157 | 83.4% | 60 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 705 | 80.2% | 73 min | 0.28% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 559 | 65.5% | 61 min | 0.36% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 23 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 23 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to DSM
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 Des Moines
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 → DSMDenver to Des Moines | SkyWest Airlines | 87.1% | 88.0% | 0.99% | 5am–8am, Tue | OO 5389 20:45 |
| 2. DEN → DSMDenver to Des Moines | United Airlines | 80.0% | 80.2% | 0.28% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. DEN → DSMDenver to Des Moines | Southwest Airlines | 65.3% | 65.5% | 0.36% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 31 points, against 23 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am33 flights93.9%
- 8am–11am638 flights91.8%
- 11am–2pm525 flights86.3%
- 2pm–5pm76 flights78.9%
- 5pm–8pm652 flights63.2%
- 8pm–5am403 flights78.7%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.2% on time, against 93.9% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 652 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to DSM 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 DSM, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 63.2%, a wide gap of 30.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.9%
- 8–11am91.8%
- 11am–2pm86.3%
- 2–5pm78.9%
- 5–8pm63.2%
- 8pm–5am78.7%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
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 68.8% on time, 20 points below October, the best at 88.4%. 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 225 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 76.4%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 32,306 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 32,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.56%, 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
7.6% 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.
The 589 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 83.5% on time across 2,327 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 2,327 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 DSM 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. October runs 88.4% on time and August 68.8%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,309 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to DSM questions
How often is DEN to DSM 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 20.1% of the 2,327 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 DSM?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 88.0% on time across 906 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 65.5%, a gap of 23 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 DSM?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.2%, 31 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 DSM?
August is the weakest month at 68.8% on time, compared with 88.4% in October. 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
- DSM to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to DSM88.0%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to DSM83.4%
- United Airlines on DEN to DSM80.2%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to DSM65.5%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- ORD to DSM, a related route70.8%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record88.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record83.4%
- United Airlines on-time record80.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DEN to DSM and DSM 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.