Route reliability record
FCA→DEN
Kalispell to Denver
- Flights
- 1,063
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 752 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,063 FCA to DEN flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly FCA to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Sunday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.4% of the time and Sunday flights 88.1%, against 83.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 63 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,048 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.03%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
82.6% on time across 848 flights
These figures cover 1,063 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 FCA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 215 | 88.8% | 57 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 848 | 82.6% | 92 min | 1.30% | B |
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 half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am364 flights94.4%
- 8am–11am158 flights91.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm364 flights77.6%
- 5pm–8pm177 flights68.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.4% of the time, against 68.0% for the evening window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 73.2% on time, 23 points below April, the best at 96.6%. 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 124 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 88.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 78.8%. 9 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. National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 15,000 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.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
43% 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 6,299 minutes out of 15,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 14,689 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 94.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.03% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.38%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 752 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 runs 82.1% on time across 1,063 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,063 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DEN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,063 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 83.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,048 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FCA to DEN questions
How often is FCA 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 16.1% of the 1,063 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is FCA to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
83.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on FCA to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.0%, 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 FCA to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 73.2% on time, compared with 96.6% in April. Across the year that is 23 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 FCA — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on FCA to DEN88.8%
- United Airlines on FCA to DEN82.6%
- FCA to SLC, a related route91.6%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- SLC to DEN, a related route77.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record88.8%
- United Airlines on-time record82.6%
- 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. FCA to DEN and DEN to FCA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed FCA to DEN’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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.