Route reliability record
DEN→OMA
Denver to Omaha
- Flights
- 3,289
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 472 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 3,289 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 385 at 89.0% on time.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 89.0% on time across 385 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,273 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.40%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
89.0% on time across 385 flights
These figures cover 3,289 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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 OMA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 89.0% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 72.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,404 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 385 | 89.0% | 60 min | 0.78% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,287 | 76.5% | 64 min | 0.31% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,404 | 72.5% | 53 min | 0.43% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 213 | 70.3% | 72 min | 0.00% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am90 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am850 flights85.6%
- 11am–2pm637 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm404 flights70.0%
- 5pm–8pm809 flights68.9%
- 8pm–5am499 flights66.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.0% of the time, against 66.6% for the overnight 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 850 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
July is the worst month at 62.1% on time, 27 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. June was the busiest month here, with 324 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.7%. 7 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 54% of the 47,000 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.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
54% 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 47,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 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 46,774 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 90.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.40%, 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
8.1% 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 are the about an hour kind, 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 76.1% on time across 3,289 flights, within half 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 3,289 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.
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 July 62.1%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,273 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to OMA questions
How often is DEN to OMA delayed?
About one flight in four arrive 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 3,289 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 OMA?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 89.0% on time across 385 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 72.5%, a gap of 17 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 90.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.6%, 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 July delays on DEN to OMA?
July is the weakest month at 62.1% on time, compared with 88.8% in November. Across the year that is 27 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
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record89.0%
- United Airlines on-time record76.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.5%
- 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 OMA and OMA to DEN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.