Carrier route record
WNHDN→DEN
Southwest Airlines · Hayden to Denver
- Flights
- 438
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on HDN to DEN lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 438 flights, with a median arrival 16 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
77.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 438 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.3%
Every carrier on HDN to DEN, 1,433 flights
These figures cover 438 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on HDN to DEN
Southwest flew 438 of the 1,433 flights on HDN to DEN, about 31% of it. Its 77.4% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 83.9% to SkyWest at 73.0%. 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 | 779 | 83.9% | 76 min | 0.90% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 438 | 77.4% | 72 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 216 | 73.0% | 73 min | 0.46% | C+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am185 flights73.5%
- 11am–2pm190 flights83.7%
- 2pm–5pm51 flights76.5%
- 5pm–8pm12 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 83.7% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 73.5%. 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 190 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on HDN to DEN through the year
August is the worst month at 61.3% on time, 29 points below July, the best at 90.3%. 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, Monday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.4%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on HDN to DEN runs when it is late
Southwest on HDN to DEN often beats the schedule: 228 of 438 completed flights, 52%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 99 late arrivals split 30 under half an hour, 34 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 35 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early228 flights52.1%
- Within 15 min111 flights25.3%
- 15–29 min late30 flights6.8%
- 30–59 min late34 flights7.8%
- 1–2 hours late19 flights4.3%
- 2+ hours late16 flights3.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 438 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
24 of 99 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 24 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DEN.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on HDN to DEN
The latest arrival of the period was on 30 November 2025, 8 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 30 November 2025 | 8 hours 53 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 March 2026 | 5 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 25 January 2026 | 4 hours 58 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 February 2026 | 4 hours 19 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 March 2026 | 4 hours 18 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
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 7,159 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 28%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 7,159 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 31 to one. The split is drawn from 7,159 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.0% 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.5% on time across 439 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 438 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. 438 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 77.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 438 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 DEN83.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on HDN to DEN73.0%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.