Route reliability record
DEN→MTJ
Denver to Montrose
- Flights
- 1,424
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,424 DEN to MTJ flights, of which United Airlines flew 894 at 75.8% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to MTJ: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.9%, against 75.4% 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
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,421 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
75.8% on time across 894 flights
These figures cover 1,424 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 MTJ
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 Airlinesthin sample | 101 | 87.1% | 45 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 894 | 75.8% | 68 min | 0.11% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 429 | 72.0% | 61 min | 0.23% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 75.8%, 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 MTJ
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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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 | 79.9% | 80.5% | 0.80% | 11am–2pm, Tue | OO 5343 11:30 |
| 2. DEN → GJTDenver to Grand Junction | SkyWest Airlines | 79.4% | 80.9% | 1.87% | 5am–8am, Tue | OO 4704 09:35 |
| 3. DEN → GJTDenver to Grand Junction | United Airlines | 77.7% | 77.8% | 0.14% | 11am–2pm, Wed | UA 1714 11:24 |
| 4. DEN → MTJDenver to Montrose | United Airlines | 75.7% | 75.8% | 0.11% | 11am–2pm, Wed | UA 1772 11:20 |
| 5. DEN → MTJDenver to Montrose | Southwest Airlines | 71.8% | 72.0% | 0.23% | 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 22 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am145 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm690 flights81.0%
- 2pm–5pm46 flights67.4%
- 5pm–8pm543 flights65.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.6% of the time, against 65.9% for the evening window. That is 22 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 690 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to MTJ 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 MTJ, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.9%, a wide gap of 21.7 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am87.6%
- 11am–2pm81.0%
- 2–5pm67.4%
- 5–8pm65.9%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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 79.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.1%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 22,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 48 to one. The split is drawn from 22,308 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,719 of the 22,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.14%, 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
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 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 80.4% on time across 1,423 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,424 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. 1,421 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 24.6% of the 1,424 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MTJ?
United Airlines leads at 75.8% on time across 894 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 72.0%, 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 MTJ?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.9%, 22 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 MTJ87.1%
- United Airlines on DEN to MTJ75.8%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to MTJ72.0%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- DEN to LAX, a related route78.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.1%
- United Airlines on-time record75.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.0%
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.