Route reliability record
DEN→MAF
Denver to Midland
- Flights
- 1,497
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 563 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,497 DEN to MAF flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly DEN to MAF: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.6%, against 77.3% 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
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,478 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
81.8% on time across 1,222 flights
These figures cover 1,497 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MAF
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 | 1,222 | 81.8% | 75 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 275 | 57.4% | 64 min | 1.82% | D |
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to MAF
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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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 36 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am503 flights85.1%
- 11am–2pm359 flights86.2%
- 2pm–5pm93 flights74.2%
- 5pm–8pm444 flights68.0%
- 8pm–5am98 flights50.0%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 50.0% on time, against 86.2% for the 11am–2pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 503 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to MAF 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 MAF, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 86.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 50.0%, a wide gap of 36.2 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am85.1%
- 11am–2pm86.2%
- 2–5pm74.2%
- 5–8pm68.0%
- 8pm–5am50.0%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 62.1% on time, 25 points below February, the best at 87.6%. 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 156 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.5%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 23,783 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.00% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.9% 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 563 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 84.0% on time across 1,500 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,497 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 MAF 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. February runs 87.6% on time and August 62.1%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,478 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to MAF questions
How often is DEN to MAF delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.7% of the 1,497 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 MAF compared with the rest of the country?
77.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point 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 MAF?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 86.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 50.0%, 36 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 MAF?
August is the weakest month at 62.1% on time, compared with 87.6% in February. Across the year that is 25 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
- MAF to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to MAF81.8%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to MAF57.4%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- DFW to MAF, a related route81.9%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record81.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record57.4%
- 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 MAF and MAF 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.