Route reliability record
MTJ→DEN
Montrose to Denver
- Flights
- 1,423
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 197 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,423 MTJ to DEN flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 428 at 81.5% on time.
Best time to fly MTJ to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.8% of the time and Thursday flights 82.6%, against 80.4% 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
80.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,416 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.35%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
81.5% on time across 428 flights
These figures cover 1,423 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 MTJ to DEN
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 428 | 81.5% | 65 min | 0.23% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 894 | 80.5% | 92 min | 0.45% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 101 | 74.3% | 78 min | 0.00% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 81.5%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MTJ 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 Montrose 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. GJT → DENGrand Junction to Denver | United Airlines | 84.7% | 85.0% | 0.41% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 1877 07:00 |
| 2. GUC → DENGunnison to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 82.8% | 83.6% | 1.01% | 5am–8am, Thu | OO 5602 07:00 |
| 3. MTJ → DENMontrose to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 81.3% | 81.5% | 0.23% | 11am–2pm, Sun | — |
| 4. MTJ → DENMontrose to Denver | United Airlines | 80.1% | 80.5% | 0.45% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 352 13:30 |
| 5. GJT → DENGrand Junction to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 75.6% | 77.0% | 1.81% | 8am–11am, Fri | OO 4800 05:30 |
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 18 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights86.8%
- 8am–11am185 flights79.9%
- 11am–2pm550 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm315 flights68.9%
- 5pm–8pm8 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.8% of the time, against 68.9% for the afternoon window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 550 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MTJ 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 MTJ to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 68.9%, a wide gap of 17.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.8%
- 8–11am79.9%
- 11am–2pm82.8%
- 2–5pm68.9%
- 5–8pm—
- 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 36 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 61.0% on time, 36 points below November, the best at 96.6%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 151 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 77.7%, a spread of 5 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 23,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 23,055 reported delay minutes.
33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 7,705 minutes out of 23,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.35%, 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
8.0% 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.
At 197 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.4% on time across 1,424 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,423 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 96.6% on time and August 61.0%, a swing of 36 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,416 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MTJ to DEN questions
How often is MTJ 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 19.6% of the 1,423 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MTJ to DEN?
Southwest Airlines leads at 81.5% on time across 428 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 80.5%, a gap of about a point. 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 MTJ to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 68.9%, 18 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 MTJ to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 61.0% on time, compared with 96.6% in November. Across the year that is 36 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 MTJ — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on MTJ to DEN81.5%
- United Airlines on MTJ to DEN80.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on MTJ to DEN74.3%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- LAX to DEN, a related route81.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.5%
- United Airlines on-time record80.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record74.3%
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MTJ to DEN and DEN to MTJ 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.