Route reliability record
DEN→PIT
Denver to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 1,622
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,290 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,622 DEN to PIT flights, of which United Airlines flew 819 at 81.2% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to PIT: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.3% of the time and Friday flights 78.9%, against 74.1% 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
74.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,613 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
81.2% on time across 819 flights
These figures cover 1,622 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 PIT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 81.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 65.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 768 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 35 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 819 | 81.2% | 58 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 768 | 65.4% | 57 min | 0.52% | C+ |
The spread between United and Southwest is 16 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 16 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to PIT
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 Pittsburgh
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 → PITDenver to Pittsburgh | United Airlines | 80.8% | 81.2% | 0.49% | 2pm–5pm, Fri | UA 1308 10:02 |
| 2. DEN → PITDenver to Pittsburgh | Southwest Airlines | 65.1% | 65.4% | 0.52% | 11am–2pm, Sun | — |
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 30 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am641 flights82.2%
- 11am–2pm116 flights85.3%
- 2pm–5pm224 flights69.2%
- 5pm–8pm596 flights66.6%
- 8pm–5am45 flights55.6%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.6% on time, against 85.3% for the 11am–2pm 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 641 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to PIT 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 PIT, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 85.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 55.6%, a wide gap of 29.7 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am82.2%
- 11am–2pm85.3%
- 2–5pm69.2%
- 5–8pm66.6%
- 8pm–5am55.6%
best all US flightsScale 45% 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.
June is the worst month at 61.2% on time, 30 points below February, the best at 91.3%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 178 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 78.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.8%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 56 to one. The split is drawn from 24,052 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.49%, 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
8.2% 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.
The 1,290 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.8% on time across 1,623 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,622 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 PIT 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. February runs 91.3% on time and June 61.2%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,613 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to PIT questions
How often is DEN to PIT 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 25.9% of the 1,622 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 PIT?
United Airlines leads at 81.2% on time across 819 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 65.4%, a gap of 16 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 PIT?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 85.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.6%, 30 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 PIT?
June is the weakest month at 61.2% on time, compared with 91.3% in February. 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
- PIT to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- United Airlines on DEN to PIT81.2%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to PIT65.4%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- ORD to PIT, a related route73.6%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record100.0%
- United Airlines on-time record81.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record65.4%
- 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 PIT and PIT 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.