Carrier route record
WNHDN→DEN
Southwest Airlines · Hayden to Denver
- Flights
- 430
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on HDN to DEN lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 430 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on HDN to DEN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 429 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.23%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.4%
Every carrier on HDN to DEN, 1,426 flights
These figures cover 430 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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
Southwest against every carrier on HDN to DEN
Southwest flew 430 of the 1,426 flights on HDN to DEN, about 30% of it. Its 76.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.4% to SkyWest at 73.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 731 | 79.4% | 78 min | 0.96% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 430 | 76.5% | 67 min | 0.23% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 265 | 73.4% | 62 min | 0.38% | C+ |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 430 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am123 flights72.4%
- 11am–2pm244 flights80.2%
- 2pm–5pm51 flights76.5%
- 5pm–8pm12 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 80.2% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 72.4%. 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 244 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on HDN to DEN through the year
July is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 23 points below November, the best at 90.0%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 63 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.0%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 6,806 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 6,806 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 33 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 6,806 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.23%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs
7.2% 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 about 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 74.6% on time across 431 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. 430 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on HDN to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 430 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 76.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 429 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- HDN to DEN, every carrier
- Southwest on DEN to HDN, the return leg
- United Airlines on HDN to DEN79.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on HDN to DEN73.4%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.