Route reliability record
DEN→HSV
Denver to Huntsville
- Flights
- 728
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,048 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, 4 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 728 DEN to HSV flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly DEN to HSV: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.3% of the time and Monday flights 85.8%, against 80.9% 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
80.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 726 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
80.9% on time across 728 flights
These figures cover 728 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.
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 HSV
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 | 728 | 80.9% | 76 min | 0.27% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to HSV
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.
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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am299 flights88.3%
- 11am–2pm66 flights87.9%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm363 flights73.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.3% of the time, against 73.4% for the evening window. That is 15 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 363 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to HSV 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 HSV, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 88.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 73.4%, a wide gap of 14.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am88.3%
- 11am–2pm87.9%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm73.4%
- 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 23 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 68.9% on time, 23 points below November, the best at 91.5%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.0%, a spread of 11 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.
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 15%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 15% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 10,610 reported delay minutes.
34% 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 2 to one.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, 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
7.0% 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.
The 1,048 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 85.2% on time across 728 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 728 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 HSV after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 728 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 80.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 726 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to HSV questions
How often is DEN to HSV 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 19.1% of the 728 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 HSV compared with the rest of the country?
80.9% 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 HSV?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.4%, 15 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 HSV?
August is the weakest month at 68.9% on time, compared with 91.5% in November. Across the year that is 23 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
- HSV to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- ATL to HSV, a related route83.7%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.9%
- 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 HSV and HSV to DEN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DEN to HSV’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.