Route reliability record
DEN→OMA
Denver to Omaha
- Flights
- 3,326
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 472 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 3,326 DEN to OMA flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 424 at 88.4% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to OMA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.4%, against 76.9% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 88.4% on time across 424 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,313 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.33%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
88.4% on time across 424 flights
These figures cover 3,326 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to OMA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 88.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 73.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,385 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 424 | 88.4% | 56 min | 0.71% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,285 | 78.1% | 67 min | 0.23% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,385 | 73.6% | 51 min | 0.36% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 232 | 69.7% | 84 min | 0.00% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to OMA
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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Denver to Omaha
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. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → OMADenver to Omaha | SkyWest Airlines | 87.8% | 88.4% | 0.71% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. DEN → OMADenver to Omaha | United Airlines | 77.9% | 78.1% | 0.23% | 11am–2pm, Tue | UA 2327 13:50 |
| 3. DEN → LNKDenver to Lincoln | SkyWest Airlines | 76.6% | 77.1% | 0.69% | 5am–8am, Tue | OO 5831 09:40 |
| 4. DEN → OMADenver to Omaha | Southwest Airlines | 73.3% | 73.6% | 0.36% | 5am–8am, 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 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am79 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am859 flights87.1%
- 11am–2pm576 flights81.3%
- 2pm–5pm525 flights70.2%
- 5pm–8pm817 flights69.5%
- 8pm–5am470 flights70.8%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.1% of the time, against 69.5% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 859 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to OMA 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 OMA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.5%, a wide gap of 21.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.1%
- 8–11am87.1%
- 11am–2pm81.3%
- 2–5pm70.2%
- 5–8pm69.5%
- 8pm–5am70.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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 65.1% on time, 24 points below November, the best at 88.8%. 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 336 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.4%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 25 to one. The split is drawn from 45,866 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.1% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.33%, 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
7.7% 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 472 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 75.8% on time across 3,325 flights, within about a point 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 3,326 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 OMA 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 88.8% on time and June 65.1%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,313 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to OMA questions
How often is DEN to OMA delayed?
Roughly 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 23.1% of the 3,326 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 OMA?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 88.4% on time across 424 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 73.6%, a gap of 15 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 OMA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.5%, 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 June delays on DEN to OMA?
June is the weakest month at 65.1% on time, compared with 88.8% in November. Across the year that is 24 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
- OMA to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Eppley Airfield (OMA) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to OMA88.4%
- United Airlines on DEN to OMA78.1%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to OMA73.6%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to OMA69.7%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- ORD to OMA, a related route69.3%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record88.4%
- United Airlines on-time record78.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.6%
- 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 OMA and OMA to DEN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DEN to OMA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.