Route reliability record
DEN→MTJ
Denver to Montrose
- Flights
- 1,417
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 197 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,417 DEN to MTJ flights, of which United Airlines flew 886 at 74.6% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to MTJ: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.0%, against 75.2% 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
75.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,414 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.07%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
74.6% on time across 886 flights
These figures cover 1,417 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MTJ
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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 Airlinesthin sample | 110 | 84.5% | 52 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 886 | 74.6% | 67 min | 0.11% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 421 | 73.9% | 55 min | 0.00% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 74.6%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Denver to Montrose
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → GUCDenver to Gunnison | SkyWest Airlines | 80.6% | 81.3% | 0.80% | 11am–2pm, Tue | OO 5343 11:30 |
| 2. DEN → GJTDenver to Grand Junction | SkyWest Airlines | 79.1% | 80.5% | 1.74% | 5am–8am, Wed | OO 4704 09:35 |
| 3. DEN → GJTDenver to Grand Junction | United Airlines | 77.2% | 77.3% | 0.14% | 11am–2pm, Tue | UA 1714 11:30 |
| 4. DEN → MTJDenver to Montrose | United Airlines | 74.5% | 74.6% | 0.11% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 5. DEN → MTJDenver to Montrose | Southwest Airlines | 73.9% | 73.9% | 0.00% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 23 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–11am157 flights86.6%
- 11am–2pm729 flights79.4%
- 2pm–5pm49 flights63.3%
- 5pm–8pm482 flights66.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.6% of the time, against 63.3% for the afternoon window. That is 23 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 729 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
November is the best month on the calendar at 95.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 152 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.1%. 8 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 46% of the 22,000 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
46% 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 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 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 21,979 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 7,633 of the 22,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.07%, 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
8.8% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 197 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.9% on time across 1,416 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,417 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 MTJ 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 95.5% on time and May 65.4%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,414 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to MTJ questions
How often is DEN to MTJ 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 24.8% of the 1,417 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MTJ?
United Airlines leads at 74.6% on time across 886 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 73.9%, a gap of half a point. 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 MTJ?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 63.3%, 23 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 May delays on DEN to MTJ?
May is the weakest month at 65.4% on time, compared with 95.5% in November. Across the year that is 30 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
- MTJ to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to MTJ84.5%
- United Airlines on DEN to MTJ74.6%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to MTJ73.9%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.7%
- DEN to SLC, a related route77.5%
- DEN to LAX, a related route79.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record84.5%
- United Airlines on-time record74.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.9%
- 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 MTJ and MTJ 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.