Route reliability record
FAT→DEN
Fresno to Denver
- Flights
- 1,450
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 844 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 1,450 FAT to DEN flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly FAT to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Sunday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.5% of the time and Sunday flights 89.4%, against 87.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 102 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,448 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.07%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
90.2% on time across 747 flights
These figures cover 1,450 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on FAT to DEN
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 344 | 93.3% | 86 min | 0.29% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 747 | 90.2% | 72 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 359 | 77.7% | 63 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on FAT 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.
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 47 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am373 flights93.5%
- 8am–11am387 flights92.2%
- 11am–2pm658 flights84.0%
- 2pm–5pm32 flights46.9%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.5% of the time, against 46.9% for the afternoon window. That is 47 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 658 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
July is the worst month at 80.5% on time, 13 points below October, the best at 93.5%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 125 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 89.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 85.0%. 4 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 46%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 5,622 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,238 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.07%, below the national 1.81% 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 844 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.0% on time across 1,453 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,450 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. October runs 93.5% on time and July 80.5%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,448 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FAT to DEN questions
How often is FAT to DEN delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 12.2% of the 1,450 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is FAT to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
87.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 10 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on FAT to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 46.9%, 47 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 July delays on FAT to DEN?
July is the weakest month at 80.5% on time, compared with 93.5% in October. Across the year that is 13 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 FAT — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on FAT to DEN93.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on FAT to DEN90.2%
- Southwest Airlines on FAT to DEN77.7%
- FAT to SAN, a related route76.2%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- FAT to LAS, a related route82.2%
- United Airlines on-time record93.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record90.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.7%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. FAT to DEN and DEN to FAT 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.