Route reliability record
MOT→DEN
Minot to Denver
- Flights
- 1,056
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 604 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 3 points 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 close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,056 MOT to DEN flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly MOT to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.6%, against 80.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,038 completed flights
Avg delay
114 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.23%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
80.0% on time across 1,056 flights
These figures cover 1,056 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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 MOT 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,056 | 80.0% | 114 min | 1.23% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on MOT 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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am455 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm158 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm261 flights76.7%
- 5pm–8pm182 flights67.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.7% of the time, against 67.4% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 455 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MOT 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 MOT to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.4%, a wide gap of 20.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.7%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm77.1%
- 2–5pm76.7%
- 5–8pm67.4%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
November is the best month on the calendar at 88.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. September was the busiest month here, with 131 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.0%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 44% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 23,776 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.23% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.47%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.6% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 604 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 75.6% on time across 1,055 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,056 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DEN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,056 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 80.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,038 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MOT to DEN questions
How often is MOT 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 20.0% of the 1,056 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is MOT to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
80.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MOT to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.4%, 20 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 March delays on MOT to DEN?
March is the weakest month at 68.3% on time, compared with 88.8% in November. Across the year that is 21 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 MOT — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- MOT to MSP, a related route81.4%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. MOT to DEN and DEN to MOT 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.