Route reliability record
DEN→FCA
Denver to Kalispell
- Flights
- 1,010
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 752 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,010 DEN to FCA flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly DEN to FCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.7%, against 81.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 43 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,001 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.50%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
78.9% on time across 807 flights
These figures cover 1,010 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 FCA
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 203 | 92.1% | 51 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 807 | 78.9% | 59 min | 0.62% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to FCA
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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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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am146 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm423 flights82.3%
- 2pm–5pm94 flights85.9%
- 5pm–8pm326 flights75.2%
- 8pm–5am21 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.1% of the time, against 75.2% for the evening window. That is 16 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 423 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to FCA 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 FCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 75.2%, a wide gap of 15.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.1%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm82.3%
- 2–5pm85.9%
- 5–8pm75.2%
- 8pm–5am—
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 32 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.
December is the weak month at 63.2% on time, against 94.9% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 76.8%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 10,752 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 91.1% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.50%, 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
5.6% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 752 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 84.6% on time across 1,010 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,010 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in FCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,010 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 81.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,001 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to FCA questions
How often is DEN to FCA delayed?
Roughly 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 18.4% of the 1,010 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DEN to FCA compared with the rest of the country?
81.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DEN to FCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 75.2%, 16 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 December delays on DEN to FCA?
December is the weakest month at 63.2% on time, compared with 94.9% in April. Across the year that is 32 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
- FCA to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to FCA92.1%
- United Airlines on DEN to FCA78.9%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- SLC to FCA, a related route88.6%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record92.1%
- United Airlines on-time record78.9%
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DEN to FCA and FCA 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.