Carrier route record
OOLIT→DEN
SkyWest Airlines · Little Rock to Denver
- Flights
- 1,048
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 67%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on LIT to DEN sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,048 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on LIT 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
75.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,037 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.67%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.3%
Every carrier on LIT to DEN, 1,570 flights
These figures cover 1,048 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on LIT to DEN
SkyWest flew 1,048 of the 1,570 flights on LIT to DEN, most of the route. Its 75.7% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.4% to Frontier at 74.8%. Two 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 Airlinesthin sample | 41 | 85.4% | 58 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 81.9% | 81 min | 1.10% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 1,048 | 75.7% | 90 min | 0.67% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 116 | 74.8% | 102 min | 0.86% | C+ |
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on LIT to DEN
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am323 flights76.5%
- 11am–2pm360 flights86.0%
- 2pm–5pm363 flights64.6%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 55% 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 86.0% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 64.6%. 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 363 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on LIT to DEN through the year
July is the worst month at 49.5% on time, 44 points below November, the best at 93.3%. 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 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.7%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 48% of the 23,000 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.
- 48%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 18%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 11,000 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 22,565 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.67%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 771 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.1% on time across 1,048 flights, 5 points above 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. 1,048 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 SkyWest on LIT to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,048 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 75.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,037 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LIT to DEN, every carrier
- SkyWest on DEN to LIT, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on LIT to DEN81.9%
- Frontier Airlines on LIT to DEN74.8%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.