Carrier route record

WNDEN→OMA

Southwest Airlines · Denver to Omaha

Flights: 1,385
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 42%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on DEN to OMA sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,385 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 424 at 88.4% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on DEN to OMA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

73.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,380 completed flights

Avg delay

51 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.36%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

76.9%

Every carrier on DEN to OMA, 3,326 flights

These figures cover 1,385 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

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Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on DEN to OMA

Southwest flew 1,385 of the 3,326 flights on DEN to OMA, about 42% of it. Its 73.6% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 88.4% to Frontier at 69.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 88.4% of the time; United Airlines manages 78.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,285 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on DEN to OMA
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 (this page)	1,385	73.6%	51 min	0.36%	C+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	232	69.7%	84 min	0.00%	C+

SkyWest leads United by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

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Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 37 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am70 flights90.0%
8am–11am310 flights85.1%
11am–2pm335 flights77.5%
2pm–5pm239 flights67.6%
5pm–8pm325 flights66.0%
8pm–5am106 flights52.8%

Scale runs 45% to 95%.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.8% on time, against 90.0% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 335 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on DEN to OMA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.November best, June worst

June is the worst month at 59.1% on time, 25 points below November, the best at 84.5%. 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 134 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 67.6%, a spread of 12 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Southwest on DEN to OMA runs when it is late

The 365 late arrivals split 155 under half an hour, 110 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 100 an hour or more.

15+ min early163 flights11.8%
Within 15 min852 flights61.7%
15–29 min late155 flights11.2%
30–59 min late110 flights8.0%
1–2 hours late71 flights5.1%
2+ hours late29 flights2.1%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 1,380 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

122 of 443 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. 44 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for Southwest on DEN to OMA

The latest arrival of the period was on 21 August 2026, 4 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Four of the five worst days fell in August 2026.

The latest arrivals of Southwest on DEN to OMA in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
21 August 2026	4 hours 29 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
17 May 2026	4 hours 12 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
24 August 2026	3 hours 58 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
13 August 2026	3 hours 56 minutes	Carrier
15 August 2026	3 hours 50 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
56%
Carrier
31%
National Airspace System
11%
Extreme weather
1%

56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 to one. The split is drawn from 18,563 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 0.36%, 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 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 50 minutes, 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 71.8% on time across 1,384 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 1,385 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 Southwest on DEN to OMA

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 84.5% on time and June 59.1%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,380 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures