Route reliability record
HDN→DEN
Hayden to Denver
- Flights
- 1,433
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 141 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,433 HDN to DEN flights, of which United Airlines flew 779 at 83.9% on time.
Best time to fly HDN to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.9% of the time and Monday flights 84.8%, against 80.3% 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
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,424 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.56%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
83.9% on time across 779 flights
These figures cover 1,433 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 HDN to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 83.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 438 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 779 | 83.9% | 76 min | 0.90% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 438 | 77.4% | 72 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 216 | 73.0% | 73 min | 0.46% | C+ |
United leads Southwest by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on HDN 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 Hayden 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. HDN → DENHayden to Denver | United Airlines | 83.1% | 83.9% | 0.90% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2255 07:00 |
| 2. HDN → DENHayden to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 77.4% | 77.4% | 0.00% | 11am–2pm, Mon | — |
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 14 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights85.9%
- 8am–11am185 flights73.5%
- 11am–2pm554 flights84.6%
- 2pm–5pm317 flights71.6%
- 5pm–8pm12 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.9% of the time, against 71.6% for the afternoon window. That is 14 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 554 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HDN 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 HDN to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 71.6%, a wide gap of 14.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.9%
- 8–11am73.5%
- 11am–2pm84.6%
- 2–5pm71.6%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
February is the weak month at 67.7% on time, against 91.0% in November. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 156 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 78.0%, a spread of 7 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 21,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 26%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 20,857 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 85.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.56%, below the national 1.89% 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
7.7% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 141 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.9% on time across 1,434 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 1,433 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. November runs 91.0% on time and February 67.7%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of February before you think about anything else. 1,424 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HDN to DEN questions
How often is HDN 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 19.7% of the 1,433 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on HDN to DEN?
United Airlines leads at 83.9% on time across 779 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.4%, a gap of 7 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 HDN to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 71.6%, 14 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 February delays on HDN to DEN?
February is the weakest month at 67.7% on time, compared with 91.0% in November. 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 HDN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on HDN to DEN83.9%
- Southwest Airlines on HDN to DEN77.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on HDN to DEN73.0%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- LAX to DEN, a related route81.6%
- United Airlines on-time record83.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record73.0%
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. HDN to DEN and DEN to HDN 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.