Route reliability record
DEN→OKC
Denver to Oklahoma City
- Flights
- 3,122
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 495 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 3,122 DEN to OKC flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,134 at 84.8% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to OKC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.4%, against 78.2% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 84.8% on time across 1,134 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,096 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.67%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
84.8% on time across 1,134 flights
These figures cover 3,122 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to OKC
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 84.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 71.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,229 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,134 | 84.8% | 67 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 338 | 81.2% | 69 min | 0.30% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 421 | 77.0% | 68 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,229 | 71.8% | 56 min | 0.73% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to OKC
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 Oklahoma City
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → OKCDenver to Oklahoma City | SkyWest Airlines | 84.2% | 84.8% | 0.71% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 5324 10:05 |
| 2. DEN → OKCDenver to Oklahoma City | United Airlines | 76.5% | 77.0% | 0.71% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 3. DEN → OKCDenver to Oklahoma City | Southwest Airlines | 71.3% | 71.8% | 0.73% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 24 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am33 flights81.8%
- 8am–11am808 flights90.1%
- 11am–2pm644 flights85.3%
- 2pm–5pm347 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm822 flights69.2%
- 8pm–5am468 flights66.5%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.1% of the time, against 66.5% for the overnight window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 822 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to OKC 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 OKC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 66.5%, a wide gap of 23.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am81.8%
- 8–11am90.1%
- 11am–2pm85.3%
- 2–5pm74.1%
- 5–8pm69.2%
- 8pm–5am66.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 70.3% on time, 17 points below November, 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 292 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.0%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 42,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 41,729 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.1% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.67%, 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
7.2% 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 495 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 runs 80.5% on time across 3,125 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 3,122 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 OKC 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 87.6% on time and August 70.3%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 3,096 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to OKC questions
How often is DEN to OKC delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.8% of the 3,122 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 OKC?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 84.8% on time across 1,134 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 71.8%, a gap of 13 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 OKC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.5%, 24 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 OKC?
August is the weakest month at 70.3% on time, compared with 87.6% in November. Across the year that is 17 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
- OKC to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to OKC84.8%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to OKC81.2%
- United Airlines on DEN to OKC77.0%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to OKC71.8%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- DFW to OKC, a related route73.0%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record84.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record81.2%
- United Airlines on-time record77.0%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DEN to OKC and OKC 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.