Route reliability record
DSM→DEN
Des Moines to Denver
- Flights
- 2,327
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 589 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 2,327 DSM to DEN flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 907 at 90.6% on time.
Best time to fly DSM to DEN: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.3%, against 83.5% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 90.6% on time across 907 flights.
Key figures
On time
83.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,310 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.64%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
90.6% on time across 907 flights
These figures cover 2,327 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 DSM to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 90.6% of the time; United Airlines manages 75.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 704 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 907 | 90.6% | 108 min | 0.77% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 157 | 84.1% | 83 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 559 | 81.6% | 75 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 704 | 75.8% | 87 min | 0.71% | B+ |
The spread between SkyWest and United 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 DSM 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 Des Moines to Denver
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. DSM → DENDes Moines to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 89.9% | 90.6% | 0.77% | 11am–2pm, Wed | OO 4777 05:30 |
| 2. DSM → DENDes Moines to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 81.2% | 81.6% | 0.54% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
| 3. DSM → DENDes Moines to Denver | United Airlines | 75.3% | 75.8% | 0.71% | 11am–2pm, Thu | UA 1781 17:17 |
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 26 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am646 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am446 flights83.9%
- 11am–2pm548 flights91.7%
- 2pm–5pm158 flights85.4%
- 5pm–8pm488 flights65.7%
- 8pm–5am41 flights73.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 91.7% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 65.7%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 646 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DSM 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 DSM to DEN, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 91.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.7%, a wide gap of 26.0 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am90.0%
- 8–11am83.9%
- 11am–2pm91.7%
- 2–5pm85.4%
- 5–8pm65.7%
- 8pm–5am73.2%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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 75.5% on time, 15 points below November, the best at 90.6%. 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 225 flights.
The day of the week is close to irrelevant here: 4 points separates the best day from the worst. Weekly demand peaks are not what drives the delays on this operation.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 34,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 32%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 34,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 33,644 reported delay minutes.
32% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 11,000 minutes out of 34,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.64%, 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
6.9% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 589 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 79.9% on time across 2,327 flights, 4 points below 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,327 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 90.6% on time and August 75.5%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,310 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DSM to DEN questions
How often is DSM to DEN delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.5% of the 2,327 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DSM to DEN?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 90.6% on time across 907 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 75.8%, 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 DSM to DEN?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 91.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.7%, 26 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 DSM to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 75.5% on time, compared with 90.6% in November. Across the year that is 15 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
- DEN to DSM — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DSM to DEN90.6%
- Frontier Airlines on DSM to DEN84.1%
- Southwest Airlines on DSM to DEN81.6%
- United Airlines on DSM to DEN75.8%
- DSM to ORD, a related route73.6%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- DSM to DFW, a related route74.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record90.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record84.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.6%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DSM to DEN and DEN to DSM 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.