Route reliability record

DFW→DEN

Dallas-Fort Worth to Denver

Flights: 6,059
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Distance: 641 mi
Carriers: 5

This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,059 DFW to DEN flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,877 at 77.7% on time.

Best time to fly DFW to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 74.9%, against 70.5% for the route overall.

United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.7% on time across 1,877 flights.

On time

70.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,917 completed flights

Avg delay

75 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.93%

National rate is 1.89%

Best carrier

United

77.7% on time across 1,877 flights

These figures cover 6,059 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 DFW to DEN

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 77.7% of the time; American Airlines manages 62.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,935 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on DFW to DEN
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	22	90.9%	213 min	0.00%	A+
Envoy Airthin sample	24	87.5%	56 min	0.00%	A+
United Airlines	1,877	77.7%	82 min	1.01%	B
Frontier Airlines	1,201	77.3%	88 min	1.08%	B
American Airlines	2,935	62.7%	69 min	2.90%	D

The spread between United and American is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Flight by flight

Flights on DFW to DEN

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 Dallas-Fort Worth to Denver

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. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.

Most reliable ways to fly from DFW to DEN
Option	Airline	Success	On time	Cancelled	Best departure	Most punctual flight
1. DFW → DENDallas-Fort Worth to Denver	United Airlines	76.9%	77.7%	1.01%	5am–8am, Tue	UA 2049 11:05
2. DFW → DENDallas-Fort Worth to Denver	Frontier Airlines	76.5%	77.3%	1.08%	5am–8am, Sun	F9 2147 05:18
3. DAL → DENDallas to Denver	Southwest Airlines	69.2%	70.2%	1.38%	5am–8am, Wed	—
4. DFW → DENDallas-Fort Worth to Denver	American Airlines	60.9%	62.7%	2.90%	5am–8am, Tue	AA 1523 07:05

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.

Plan this trip by month, day and time

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 32 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am855 flights89.6%
8am–11am1,145 flights75.5%
11am–2pm1,160 flights80.1%
2pm–5pm969 flights59.5%
5pm–8pm1,036 flights60.2%
8pm–5am894 flights57.1%

Scale runs 50% to 95%.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.1% on time, against 89.6% 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 1,160 flights scheduled in it.

Explore

Filter DFW to DEN 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 DFW to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 57.1%, a wide gap of 32.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.

5–8am89.6%
8–11am75.5%
11am–2pm80.1%
2–5pm59.5%
5–8pm60.2%
8pm–5am57.1%

best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.

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.

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

June is the worst month at 59.0% on time, 18 points below November, the best at 77.4%. 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 547 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 74.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.2%, a spread of 8 points.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 131,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
49%
Carrier
27%
National Airspace System
21%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 131,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 130,514 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 89.6% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.93% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The 641 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 75.8% on time across 6,063 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 6,059 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 DEN 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. November runs 77.4% on time and June 59.0%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 5,917 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

DFW to DEN questions

How often is DFW to DEN delayed?

Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.5% of the 6,059 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on DFW to DEN?

United Airlines leads at 77.7% on time across 1,877 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 62.7%, a gap of 15 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 DFW to DEN?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 57.1%, 32 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 DFW to DEN?

June is the weakest month at 59.0% on time, compared with 77.4% in November. 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.

Where to go next

Direction matters. DFW to DEN and DEN to DFW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

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<iframe src="https://delayatlas.com/embed/route/dfw-den" width="320" height="132" style="border:0;max-width:100%" loading="lazy" title="DFW to DEN on-time record"></iframe>
<p style="font:12px/1.4 sans-serif;margin:4px 0 0">DFW to DEN flight delay statistics from <a href="https://delayatlas.com/routes/dfw-to-den">DelayAtlas</a></p>

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.