Carrier route record
WNDEN→HDN
Southwest Airlines · Denver to Hayden
- Flights
- 439
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on DEN to HDN sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 439 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on DEN to HDN runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 48 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 436 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.46%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.9%
Every carrier on DEN to HDN, 1,434 flights
These figures cover 439 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on DEN to HDN
Southwest flew 439 of the 1,434 flights on DEN to HDN, about 31% of it. Its 72.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 77.6% to United at 71.9%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 | 215 | 77.6% | 45 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 439 | 72.5% | 69 min | 0.46% | C+ |
| United Airlines | 780 | 71.9% | 76 min | 0.64% | C+ |
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
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am153 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm72 flights77.5%
- 2pm–5pm34 flights52.9%
- 5pm–8pm180 flights66.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 81.0% of the time, against 52.9% for the afternoon window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 180 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DEN to HDN through the year
August is the worst month at 53.3% on time, 37 points below November, the best at 90.0%. 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 64 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 68.9%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on DEN to HDN runs when it is late
The 120 late arrivals split 35 under half an hour, 37 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 48 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early105 flights24.1%
- Within 15 min211 flights48.4%
- 15–29 min late35 flights8.0%
- 30–59 min late37 flights8.5%
- 1–2 hours late26 flights6.0%
- 2+ hours late22 flights5.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 436 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
44 of 157 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. Only 7 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on DEN to HDN
The latest arrival of the period was on 30 November 2025, 5 hours 34 minutes behind schedule. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 30 November 2025 | 5 hours 34 minutes | None reported |
| 21 August 2026 | 4 hours 21 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 August 2026 | 4 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 February 2026 | 3 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 March 2026 | 3 hours 28 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 7,970 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 7,970 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 50 to one. The split is drawn from 7,970 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 81.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.46%, 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 costs
11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 141 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.4% on time across 438 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 439 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on DEN to HDN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 439 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 72.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 436 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to HDN, every carrier
- Southwest on HDN to DEN, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to HDN77.6%
- United Airlines on DEN to HDN71.9%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.