Carrier route record

OODEN→GJT

SkyWest Airlines · Denver to Grand Junction

Flights: 1,496
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 67%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.

SkyWest on DEN to GJT lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,496 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on DEN to GJT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,470 completed flights

Avg delay

62 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.74%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.5%

Every carrier on DEN to GJT, 2,229 flights

These figures cover 1,496 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.

Carrier by carrier

SkyWest against every carrier on DEN to GJT

SkyWest flew 1,496 of the 2,229 flights on DEN to GJT, most of the route. Its 80.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 80.5% to United at 77.3%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on DEN to GJT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines (this page)	1,496	80.5%	62 min	1.74%	B
United Airlines	733	77.3%	70 min	0.14%	B+

Flight by flight

SkyWest flight numbers on DEN to GJT

Departure window

When SkyWest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am62 flights88.5%
8am–11am365 flights87.2%
11am–2pm362 flights85.6%
2pm–5pm364 flights71.8%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am343 flights76.1%

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 88.5% of the time, against 71.8% for the afternoon window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on DEN to GJT through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.October best, August worst

August is the worst month at 66.1% on time, 27 points below October, the best at 92.7%. 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 152 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 75.3%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 43% of the 18,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Carrier
43%
Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
15%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 17,793 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 7,660 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.74% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.

At 212 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.5% on time across 1,496 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 1,496 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.

What to do with this

Booking SkyWest on DEN to GJT

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 92.7% on time and August 66.1%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,470 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures