Route reliability record
MAF→DEN
Midland to Denver
- Flights
- 1,500
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 563 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,500 MAF to DEN flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly MAF to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.8% of the time and Saturday flights 89.0%, against 84.0% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 67 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,481 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.93%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
81.4% on time across 1,225 flights
These figures cover 1,500 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 MAF to DEN
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 275 | 95.6% | 46 min | 1.09% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,225 | 81.4% | 94 min | 0.90% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MAF 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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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 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am487 flights94.8%
- 8am–11am153 flights90.1%
- 11am–2pm380 flights83.2%
- 2pm–5pm160 flights88.7%
- 5pm–8pm320 flights63.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.2% on time, against 94.8% 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 487 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MAF 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 MAF to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 63.2%, a wide gap of 31.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.8%
- 8–11am90.1%
- 11am–2pm83.2%
- 2–5pm88.7%
- 5–8pm63.2%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 1,500 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
August is the worst month at 76.7% on time, 12 points below July, the best at 88.5%. 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 157 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 89.0% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 79.4%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 22,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 10,000 of the 22,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 21,638 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 563 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.3% on time across 1,497 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,500 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: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 63.2% on time against 94.8% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 32 points is the largest single thing you control here. SkyWest Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 1,481 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MAF to DEN questions
How often is MAF to DEN delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.0% of the 1,500 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MAF to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
84.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MAF to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.2%, 32 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 MAF to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 76.7% on time, compared with 88.5% in July. Across the year that is 12 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 MAF — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on MAF to DEN95.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on MAF to DEN81.4%
- MAF to DFW, a related route83.3%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- MAF to HOU, a related route84.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record95.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record81.4%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MAF to DEN and DEN to MAF 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.