Route reliability record
DEN→JAC
Denver to Jackson
- Flights
- 1,632
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 406 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,632 DEN to JAC flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 470 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 93.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.7%, against 82.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 51 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,601 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
92.3% on time across 470 flights
These figures cover 1,632 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.
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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 78.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,162 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 470 | 92.3% | 43 min | 2.34% | A |
| United Airlines | 1,162 | 78.6% | 60 min | 0.60% | B+ |
The spread between SkyWest and United is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 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.
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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 | 90.1% | 92.3% | 2.34% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 5730 08:00 |
| 2. DEN → JACDenver to Jackson | United Airlines | 78.1% | 78.6% | 0.60% | 8am–11am, Mon | UA 1537 13:55 |
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 19 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am363 flights93.7%
- 11am–2pm608 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm298 flights78.2%
- 5pm–8pm363 flights74.3%
- 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 93.7% of the time, against 74.3% for the evening window. That is 19 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 608 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to JAC 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 JAC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 93.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 74.3%, a wide gap of 19.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am93.7%
- 11am–2pm82.8%
- 2–5pm78.2%
- 5–8pm74.3%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
December is the weak month at 71.7% on time, against 93.6% in November. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 78.8%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 16,374 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 93.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.80%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.7% 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 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 runs 80.1% on time across 1,631 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,632 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 December 71.7%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,601 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to JAC questions
How often is DEN to JAC delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.6% of the 1,632 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 470 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 78.6%, a gap of 14 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 93.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.3%, 19 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 December delays on DEN to JAC?
December is the weakest month at 71.7% on time, compared with 93.6% in November. Across the year that is 22 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 JAC78.6%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- SLC to JAC, a related route86.8%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record92.3%
- United Airlines on-time record78.6%
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.