Route reliability record
ICT→DEN
Wichita to Denver
- Flights
- 2,227
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 420 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, about a point 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 2,227 ICT to DEN flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 559 at 81.6% on time.
Best time to fly ICT to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.8% of the time and Friday flights 83.2%, against 78.7% for the route overall.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.6% on time across 559 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,210 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
81.6% on time across 559 flights
These figures cover 2,227 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 ICT to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 81.6% of the time; United Airlines manages 68.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 371 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 559 | 81.6% | 62 min | 0.36% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,297 | 80.4% | 82 min | 0.62% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 371 | 68.6% | 46 min | 0.54% | C+ |
The spread between Southwest and United is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on ICT 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 Wichita 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. ICT → DENWichita to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 81.3% | 81.6% | 0.36% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 2. ICT → DENWichita to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 79.9% | 80.4% | 0.62% | 5am–8am, Fri | OO 5355 06:00 |
| 3. ICT → DENWichita to Denver | United Airlines | 68.2% | 68.6% | 0.54% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
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 28 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am670 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am393 flights69.8%
- 11am–2pm531 flights84.3%
- 2pm–5pm57 flights64.9%
- 5pm–8pm574 flights64.4%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.4% on time, against 92.8% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 670 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ICT 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 ICT to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.4%, a wide gap of 28.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.8%
- 8–11am69.8%
- 11am–2pm84.3%
- 2–5pm64.9%
- 5–8pm64.4%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 69.1% on time, 17 points below February, the best at 86.3%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 234 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 74.7%, a spread of 9 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 32,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%National Airspace System
- 30%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 12,000 minutes out of 32,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 32,254 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, 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
7.4% 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 420 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 runs 77.7% on time across 2,231 flights, within about a point 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 2,227 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 86.3% on time and August 69.1%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,210 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ICT to DEN questions
How often is ICT 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 21.3% of the 2,227 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 ICT to DEN?
Southwest Airlines leads at 81.6% on time across 559 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 68.6%, a gap of 13 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 ICT to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.4%, 28 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 ICT to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 69.1% on time, compared with 86.3% in February. Across the year that is 17 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 ICT — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on ICT to DEN81.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on ICT to DEN80.4%
- United Airlines on ICT to DEN68.6%
- ICT to DFW, a related route79.9%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- ICT to ORD, a related route74.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.4%
- United Airlines on-time record68.6%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ICT to DEN and DEN to ICT 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.