Route reliability record
DEN→LIT
Denver to Little Rock
- Flights
- 1,574
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 771 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,574 DEN to LIT flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 986 at 85.7% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to LIT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.7% of the time and Saturday flights 84.6%, against 82.6% 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 53 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,563 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.57%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
85.7% on time across 986 flights
These figures cover 1,574 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 LIT
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 986 | 85.7% | 78 min | 0.61% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 81.3% | 43 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 120 | 77.5% | 91 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 103 | 63.7% | 81 min | 0.97% | D+ |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 85.7%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to LIT
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Denver to Little Rock
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 → LITDenver to Little Rock | SkyWest Airlines | 85.2% | 85.7% | 0.61% | 11am–2pm, Thu | OO 5760 13:25 |
| 2. DEN → LITDenver to Little Rock | Southwest Airlines | 80.9% | 81.3% | 0.55% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
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 17 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am505 flights89.7%
- 11am–2pm549 flights85.0%
- 2pm–5pm141 flights73.8%
- 5pm–8pm376 flights72.9%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
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 89.7% of the time, against 72.9% for the evening 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 549 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to LIT 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 LIT, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 89.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 72.9%, a wide gap of 16.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am89.7%
- 11am–2pm85.0%
- 2–5pm73.8%
- 5–8pm72.9%
- 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 15 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 76.1% on time, 15 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. October was the busiest month here, with 140 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.8%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 18,992 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,034 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.57%, 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
6.0% 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 771 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 runs 80.3% on time across 1,572 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 1,574 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 LIT 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 91.5% on time and August 76.1%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,563 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to LIT questions
How often is DEN to LIT 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 17.4% of the 1,574 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to LIT?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 85.7% on time across 986 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 81.3%, a gap of 4 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 LIT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.9%, 17 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 LIT?
August is the weakest month at 76.1% on time, compared with 91.5% in November. Across the year that is 15 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
- LIT to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to LIT85.7%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to LIT81.3%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to LIT77.5%
- United Airlines on DEN to LIT63.7%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- DFW to LIT, a related route78.2%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.5%
- 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 LIT and LIT to DEN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DEN to LIT’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.