Route reliability record
DEN→SAF
Denver to Santa Fe
- Flights
- 1,684
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 303 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,684 DEN to SAF flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly DEN to SAF: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.8%, against 81.0% 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
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,666 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.01%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
81.0% on time across 1,684 flights
These figures cover 1,684 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 SAF
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,684 | 81.0% | 79 min | 1.01% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to SAF
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 Santa Fe
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → ABQDenver to Albuquerque | SkyWest Airlines | 84.0% | 84.4% | 0.44% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 5487 08:05 |
| 2. DEN → SAFDenver to Santa Fe | SkyWest Airlines | 80.2% | 81.0% | 1.01% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 4731 08:25 |
| 3. DEN → ABQDenver to Albuquerque | United Airlines | 76.4% | 76.8% | 0.47% | 11am–2pm, Tue | UA 484 19:25 |
| 4. DEN → ABQDenver to Albuquerque | Southwest Airlines | 75.1% | 75.4% | 0.41% | 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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am60 flights83.1%
- 8am–11am276 flights91.6%
- 11am–2pm626 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm359 flights79.4%
- 5pm–8pm209 flights70.0%
- 8pm–5am154 flights83.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 70.0% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 626 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to SAF 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 SAF, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 70.0%, a wide gap of 21.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am83.1%
- 8–11am91.6%
- 11am–2pm80.1%
- 2–5pm79.4%
- 5–8pm70.0%
- 8pm–5am83.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 64.5% on time, 25 points below October, the best at 89.3%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 77.3%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 13%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 13% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 24,838 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.01% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.06%.
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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 303 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 79.0% on time across 1,684 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 1,684 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 SAF 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. October runs 89.3% on time and August 64.5%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,666 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to SAF questions
How often is DEN to SAF delayed?
About 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 19.0% of the 1,684 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DEN to SAF compared with the rest of the country?
81.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DEN to SAF?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 70.0%, 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 August delays on DEN to SAF?
August is the weakest month at 64.5% on time, compared with 89.3% in October. Across the year that is 25 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
- SAF to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- DFW to SAF, a related route76.9%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record81.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. DEN to SAF and SAF to DEN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DEN to SAF’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.