Route reliability record
FCA→DEN
Kalispell to Denver
- Flights
- 1,010
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 752 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,010 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 Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.6% of the time and Thursday flights 88.0%, against 84.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 73 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 997 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.99%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
83.2% on time across 807 flights
These figures cover 1,010 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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 | 203 | 89.7% | 83 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 807 | 83.2% | 92 min | 1.24% | B |
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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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am348 flights93.6%
- 8am–11am146 flights93.2%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm352 flights78.8%
- 5pm–8pm164 flights69.6%
- 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 93.6% of the time, against 69.6% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 352 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FCA 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 FCA to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.6%, a wide gap of 24.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.6%
- 8–11am93.2%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm78.8%
- 5–8pm69.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 71.1% on time, 26 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. August was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 88.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.1%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%Carrier
- 14%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 14% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,942 reported delay minutes.
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 5,980 minutes out of 14,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 0.99% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.6% on time across 1,010 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,010 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. 1,010 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 84.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 997 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FCA to DEN questions
How often is FCA to DEN delayed?
Roughly 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 15.4% of the 1,010 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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?
84.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 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 93.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.6%, 24 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 71.1% on time, compared with 96.6% in April. Across the year that is 26 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 DEN89.7%
- United Airlines on FCA to DEN83.2%
- FCA to SLC, a related route89.4%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record89.7%
- United Airlines on-time record83.2%
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.
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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.