Route reliability record
DEN→GCC
Denver to Gillette
- Flights
- 747
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 313 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 747 DEN to GCC flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly DEN to GCC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.3%, 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 738 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.07%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
79.8% on time across 747 flights
These figures cover 747 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to GCC
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 Airlines | 747 | 79.8% | 75 min | 1.07% | B |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am71 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm319 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm49 flights71.7%
- 5pm–8pm149 flights65.1%
- 8pm–5am159 flights84.9%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.3% of the time, against 65.1% for the evening 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 319 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to GCC 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 GCC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.1%, a wide gap of 22.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am87.3%
- 11am–2pm83.5%
- 2–5pm71.7%
- 5–8pm65.1%
- 8pm–5am84.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 67.5% on time, 28 points below September, the best at 95.0%. 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 88 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.9%, a spread of 18 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 11,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
35% 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 5 to one. The split is drawn from 11,190 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,256 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.07% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.0% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 313 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 81.5% on time across 747 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 747 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 GCC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 747 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 79.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 738 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to GCC questions
How often is DEN to GCC 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 747 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DEN to GCC compared with the rest of the country?
79.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 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 GCC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.1%, 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 August delays on DEN to GCC?
August is the weakest month at 67.5% on time, compared with 95.0% in September. Across the year that is 28 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
- GCC to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- DEN to LAX, a related route78.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record79.8%
- 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 GCC and GCC to DEN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DEN to GCC’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.