Route reliability record
MRY→DEN
Monterey to Denver
- Flights
- 729
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 959 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 16 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 729 MRY to DEN flights, with a median arrival 16 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 16 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 156 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
92.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 723 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
92.9% on time across 626 flights
These figures cover 729 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 16 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 MRY 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 103 | 93.1% | 122 min | 0.97% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 626 | 92.9% | 85 min | 0.16% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MRY 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 Monterey 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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MRY → DENMonterey to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 92.8% | 92.9% | 0.16% | 5am–8am, Wed | OO 5587 05:00 |
| 2. SJC → DENSan Jose to Denver | United Airlines | 89.0% | 89.3% | 0.30% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 3. SJC → DENSan Jose to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 74.5% | 74.8% | 0.46% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 729 flights.
- 5am–8am364 flights95.9%
- 8am–11am2 flights—
- 11am–2pm363 flights90.0%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 90.0% on time against 95.9% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MRY 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 MRY to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.9% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 90.0%, a real gap of 5.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.9%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm90.0%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% 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 729 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 86.7% on time, 12 points below January, the best at 98.4%. 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 63 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 96.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 90.5%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 4,604 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,604 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 4,604 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,001 of the 4,604 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.0% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 959 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 79.5% on time across 726 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 729 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. 729 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 92.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 723 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MRY to DEN questions
How often is MRY to DEN delayed?
About one flight in fifteen arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 7.1% of the 729 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MRY to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
92.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 16 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MRY to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.9% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 90.0%, 6 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 MRY to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 86.7% on time, compared with 98.4% in January. 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 MRY — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on MRY to DEN93.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on MRY to DEN92.9%
- MRY to PHX, a related route82.7%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- MRY to LAX, a related route86.6%
- United Airlines on-time record93.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record92.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
Direction matters. MRY to DEN and DEN to MRY 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.