Route reliability record
DEN→TUL
Denver to Tulsa
- Flights
- 2,475
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 541 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 2,475 DEN to TUL flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,172 at 86.1% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to TUL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.9%, against 77.6% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 86.1% on time across 1,172 flights.
Key figures
On time
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,447 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.01%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
86.1% on time across 1,172 flights
These figures cover 2,475 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to TUL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 86.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 66.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 894 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,172 | 86.1% | 65 min | 0.68% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 366 | 77.6% | 77 min | 1.37% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 43 | 76.7% | 74 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 894 | 66.3% | 56 min | 1.34% | C |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 20 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 20 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to TUL
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 Tulsa
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 → TULDenver to Tulsa | SkyWest Airlines | 85.5% | 86.1% | 0.68% | 11am–2pm, Sat | OO 5311 13:40 |
| 2. DEN → TULDenver to Tulsa | United Airlines | 76.5% | 77.6% | 1.37% | 5pm–8pm, Sun | UA 1937 17:25 |
| 3. DEN → TULDenver to Tulsa | Southwest Airlines | 65.4% | 66.3% | 1.34% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 19 points, against 20 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am585 flights86.3%
- 11am–2pm511 flights85.5%
- 2pm–5pm244 flights73.7%
- 5pm–8pm655 flights67.3%
- 8pm–5am480 flights74.3%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.3% of the time, against 67.3% for the evening window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 655 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to TUL 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 TUL, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 86.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.3%, a wide gap of 19.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am86.3%
- 11am–2pm85.5%
- 2–5pm73.7%
- 5–8pm67.3%
- 8pm–5am74.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 68.6% on time, 18 points below January, the best at 86.6%. 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 236 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 72.1%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 34,065 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.01% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.0% 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 541 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 runs 80.4% on time across 2,474 flights, within 3 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 2,475 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 TUL 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. January runs 86.6% on time and August 68.6%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,447 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to TUL questions
How often is DEN to TUL 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 22.4% of the 2,475 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 TUL?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 86.1% on time across 1,172 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 66.3%, a gap of 20 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 TUL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.3%, 19 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 TUL?
August is the weakest month at 68.6% on time, compared with 86.6% in January. Across the year that is 18 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
- TUL to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to TUL86.1%
- United Airlines on DEN to TUL77.6%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to TUL66.3%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- DFW to TUL, a related route73.2%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record86.1%
- United Airlines on-time record77.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record76.7%
- 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 TUL and TUL 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.