Route reliability record
DEN→JAC
Denver to Jackson
- Flights
- 1,634
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 406 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 1,634 DEN to JAC flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 500 at 92.3% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to JAC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.7%, 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 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 40 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,600 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
92.3% on time across 500 flights
These figures cover 1,634 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to JAC
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 92.3% of the time; United Airlines manages 76.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,134 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 500 | 92.3% | 47 min | 2.20% | A |
| United Airlines | 1,134 | 76.9% | 64 min | 0.88% | B+ |
The spread between SkyWest and United is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to JAC
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Denver to Jackson
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → JACDenver to Jackson | SkyWest Airlines | 90.3% | 92.3% | 2.20% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 5730 08:00 |
| 2. DEN → JACDenver to Jackson | United Airlines | 76.2% | 76.9% | 0.88% | 11am–2pm, Mon | UA 1537 13:45 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 21 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am363 flights94.0%
- 11am–2pm670 flights82.4%
- 2pm–5pm237 flights74.0%
- 5pm–8pm364 flights72.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 94.0% of the time, against 72.6% for the evening window. That is 21 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 670 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
July is the worst month at 66.9% on time, 27 points below November, the best at 93.6%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.2%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
44% 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 18,178 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 6,580 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.29% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.80%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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 406 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 77.1% on time across 1,633 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 1,634 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in JAC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 93.6% on time and July 66.9%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,600 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to JAC questions
How often is DEN to JAC 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 1,634 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to JAC?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 92.3% on time across 500 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 76.9%, a gap of 15 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DEN to JAC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 94.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.6%, 21 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 July delays on DEN to JAC?
July is the weakest month at 66.9% on time, compared with 93.6% in November. Across the year that is 27 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
- JAC to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to JAC92.3%
- United Airlines on DEN to JAC76.9%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.7%
- SLC to JAC, a related route88.4%
- DEN to SLC, a related route77.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record92.3%
- United Airlines on-time record76.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DEN to JAC and JAC 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.