Route reliability record
DEN→MFR
Denver to Medford
- Flights
- 731
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 964 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 731 DEN to MFR flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly DEN to MFR: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.9% of the time and Monday flights 82.5%, against 75.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 727 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.14%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
75.2% on time across 575 flights
These figures cover 731 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MFR
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 Airlinesthin sample | 156 | 77.9% | 57 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 575 | 75.2% | 52 min | 0.17% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to MFR
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.
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 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–11am—
- 11am–2pm365 flights74.9%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm332 flights74.8%
- 8pm–5am33 flights93.9%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 93.9% on time. The full set of windows spans 19 points.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 50 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.
June is the worst month at 43.3% on time, 50 points below November, the best at 93.2%. 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 63 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.6%. 12 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 50% of the 9,252 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
50% 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 9,252 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 9,252 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.14%, 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 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 964 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.3% on time across 729 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 731 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MFR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 731 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 75.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 727 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to MFR questions
How often is DEN to MFR delayed?
About 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 24.2% of the 731 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is DEN to MFR compared with the rest of the country?
75.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DEN to MFR?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 93.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.8%, 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 June delays on DEN to MFR?
June is the weakest month at 43.3% on time, compared with 93.2% in November. Across the year that is 50 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
- MFR to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to MFR77.9%
- United Airlines on DEN to MFR75.2%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.7%
- SEA to MFR, a related route88.2%
- DEN to SLC, a related route77.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.9%
- United Airlines on-time record75.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DEN to MFR and MFR 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.