Carrier route record

OODEN→MAF

SkyWest Airlines · Denver to Midland

Flights: 1,197
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 82%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.

SkyWest on DEN to MAF lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,197 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on DEN to MAF from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

81.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,185 completed flights

Avg delay

74 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.84%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.2%

Every carrier on DEN to MAF, 1,462 flights

These figures cover 1,197 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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

SkyWest against every carrier on DEN to MAF

SkyWest flew 1,197 of the 1,462 flights on DEN to MAF, most of the route. Its 81.1% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 81.1% to Southwest at 59.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on DEN to MAF
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines (this page)	1,197	81.1%	74 min	0.84%	B+
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	265	59.4%	65 min	1.51%	D

Flight by flight

SkyWest flight numbers on DEN to MAF

Departure window

When SkyWest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am474 flights84.6%
11am–2pm328 flights86.5%
2pm–5pm54 flights75.9%
5pm–8pm307 flights74.0%
8pm–5am34 flights52.9%

Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.9% on time, against 86.5% 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 474 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on DEN to MAF through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, July worst

July is the worst month at 70.7% on time, 20 points below February, the best at 90.4%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 113 flights.

Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 76.7%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

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 17,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
38%
Late-arriving aircraft
37%
National Airspace System
16%
Extreme weather
9%

37% 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 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 16,551 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 6,332 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.84%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs

7.1% 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 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 78.7% on time across 1,198 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 1,197 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.

What to do with this

Booking SkyWest on DEN to MAF

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 90.4% on time and July 70.7%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,185 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures