Route reliability record
FSD→DEN
Sioux Falls to Denver
- Flights
- 1,818
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 483 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,818 FSD to DEN flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,313 at 82.7% on time.
Best time to fly FSD to DEN: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.3%, against 80.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,789 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
82.7% on time across 1,313 flights
These figures cover 1,818 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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 FSD to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 82.7% of the time; United Airlines manages 74.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 366 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,313 | 82.7% | 96 min | 1.37% | B |
| United Airlines | 366 | 74.3% | 61 min | 1.91% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 139 | 71.2% | 108 min | 0.00% | C+ |
SkyWest leads United by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on FSD 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 Sioux Falls 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. FSD → DENSioux Falls to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 81.6% | 82.7% | 1.37% | 11am–2pm, Tue | OO 5492 13:18 |
| 2. FSD → DENSioux Falls to Denver | United Airlines | 72.9% | 74.3% | 1.91% | 8am–11am, Sun | — |
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 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am361 flights91.2%
- 8am–11am365 flights74.2%
- 11am–2pm431 flights91.6%
- 2pm–5pm152 flights84.1%
- 5pm–8pm450 flights65.2%
- 8pm–5am59 flights67.8%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 91.6% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 65.2%. 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 450 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FSD 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 FSD to DEN, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 91.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.2%, a wide gap of 26.4 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am91.2%
- 8–11am74.2%
- 11am–2pm91.6%
- 2–5pm84.1%
- 5–8pm65.2%
- 8pm–5am67.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
December is the weak month at 65.4% on time, against 90.8% in February. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 185 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 77.6%, a spread of 6 points.
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 31,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 12% 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 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 31,369 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.38% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.6% 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.
At 483 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 82.8% on time across 1,817 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,818 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. February runs 90.8% on time and December 65.4%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,789 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FSD to DEN questions
How often is FSD to DEN delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.8% of the 1,818 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 FSD to DEN?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 82.7% on time across 1,313 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 74.3%, a gap of 8 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 FSD to DEN?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.2%, 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 December delays on FSD to DEN?
December is the weakest month at 65.4% on time, compared with 90.8% in February. Across the year that is 25 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 FSD — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on FSD to DEN82.7%
- United Airlines on FSD to DEN74.3%
- Frontier Airlines on FSD to DEN71.2%
- FSD to ORD, a related route68.9%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- FSD to MSP, a related route84.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.7%
- United Airlines on-time record74.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record71.2%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. FSD to DEN and DEN to FSD 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.