Route reliability record
GJT→DEN
Grand Junction to Denver
- Flights
- 2,229
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 212 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,229 flights, of which United Airlines flew 733 at 81.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,192 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.48%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
81.6% on time across 733 flights
These figures cover 2,229 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 GJT to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 81.6% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 75.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,496 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 733 | 81.6% | 69 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,496 | 75.5% | 78 min | 2.01% | B |
United leads SkyWest by 6 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 22 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am692 flights84.7%
- 8am–11am81 flights86.2%
- 11am–2pm728 flights82.0%
- 2pm–5pm364 flights65.2%
- 5pm–8pm362 flights64.6%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.6% on time, against 86.2% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 728 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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 58.8% on time, 31 points below November, the best at 90.2%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 214 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 81.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 73.0%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 37,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 13,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 37,007 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.48% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.8% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 212 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 79.5% on time across 2,229 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,229 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.
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 90.2% on time and August 58.8%, a swing of 31 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,192 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GJT to DEN questions
How often is GJT to DEN delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.4% of the 2,229 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on GJT to DEN?
United Airlines leads at 81.6% on time across 733 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 75.5%, a gap of 6 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 GJT to DEN?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.6%, 22 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 GJT to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 58.8% on time, compared with 90.2% in November. Across the year that is 31 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 GJT — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record81.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record75.5%
- 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. GJT to DEN and DEN to GJT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.