Route reliability record
LGA→DEN
New York to Denver
- Flights
- 4,663
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,620 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,663 LGA to DEN flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,021 at 77.6% on time.
Best time to fly LGA to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.0% of the time and Saturday flights 77.0%, against 70.0% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.6% on time across 2,021 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,474 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.28%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
77.6% on time across 2,021 flights
These figures cover 4,663 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 77.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 59.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,516 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,021 | 77.6% | 80 min | 2.08% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,033 | 70.7% | 68 min | 4.55% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 93 | 67.8% | 121 min | 3.23% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,516 | 59.3% | 63 min | 4.02% | D− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 4.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA 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 New York to Denver
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → DENNewark to Denver | United Airlines | 76.5% | 77.6% | 1.46% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2455 10:00 |
| 2. LGA → DENNew York to Denver | United Airlines | 76.0% | 77.6% | 2.08% | 8am–11am, Sat | UA 2200 12:15 |
| 3. JFK → DENNew York to Denver | Delta Air Lines | 71.8% | 73.7% | 2.56% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 532 08:30 |
| 4. LGA → DENNew York to Denver | Delta Air Lines | 67.5% | 70.7% | 4.55% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 751 07:30 |
| 5. JFK → DENNew York to Denver | JetBlue Airways | 64.4% | 67.9% | 5.14% | 8am–11am, Wed | B6 97 20:15 |
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 33 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am982 flights85.0%
- 8am–11am579 flights78.3%
- 11am–2pm519 flights79.4%
- 2pm–5pm1,195 flights62.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,108 flights59.5%
- 8pm–5am280 flights51.9%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.9% on time, against 85.0% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,195 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA 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 LGA to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 51.9%, a wide gap of 33.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.0%
- 8–11am78.3%
- 11am–2pm79.4%
- 2–5pm62.9%
- 5–8pm59.5%
- 8pm–5am51.9%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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, 24 points below January, the best at 82.6%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 404 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 66.0%, a spread of 11 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 95,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 95,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 95,161 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 85.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.28%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 1,620 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 71.3% on time across 4,664 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 4,663 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.28% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 4,474 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to DEN questions
How often is LGA to DEN delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.0% of the 4,663 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 LGA to DEN?
United Airlines leads at 77.6% on time across 2,021 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 59.3%, a gap of 18 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 LGA to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 51.9%, 33 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 LGA to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 58.8% on time, compared with 82.6% in January. Across the year that is 24 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 LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on LGA to DEN77.6%
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to DEN70.7%
- Southwest Airlines on LGA to DEN59.3%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- United Airlines on-time record77.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record70.7%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record67.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to DEN and DEN to LGA 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.