Route reliability record
OKC→DEN
Oklahoma City to Denver
- Flights
- 3,125
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 495 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 about an hour on average. That rests on 3,125 OKC to DEN flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 1,140 at 85.1% on time.
Best time to fly OKC to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Sunday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.9% of the time and Sunday flights 83.5%, against 80.5% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 85.1% on time across 1,140 flights.
Key figures
On time
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,095 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.96%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
85.1% on time across 1,140 flights
These figures cover 3,125 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 OKC to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 85.1% of the time; United Airlines manages 72.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 418 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,140 | 85.1% | 81 min | 1.14% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,229 | 79.6% | 51 min | 0.90% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 338 | 78.0% | 84 min | 0.59% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 418 | 72.9% | 50 min | 0.96% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and United is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on OKC 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 Oklahoma City to Denver
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. OKC → DENOklahoma City to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 84.1% | 85.1% | 1.14% | 5am–8am, Sun | OO 4751 06:00 |
| 2. OKC → DENOklahoma City to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 78.9% | 79.6% | 0.90% | 5am–8am, Sun | — |
| 3. OKC → DENOklahoma City to Denver | United Airlines | 72.2% | 72.9% | 0.96% | 8am–11am, 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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 27 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am740 flights94.9%
- 8am–11am556 flights78.4%
- 11am–2pm608 flights84.1%
- 2pm–5pm201 flights75.9%
- 5pm–8pm819 flights67.9%
- 8pm–5am201 flights78.6%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.9% of the time, against 67.9% for the evening window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 819 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter OKC 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 OKC to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.9%, a wide gap of 27.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.9%
- 8–11am78.4%
- 11am–2pm84.1%
- 2–5pm75.9%
- 5–8pm67.9%
- 8pm–5am78.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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 75.5% on time, 15 points below November, the best at 90.0%. 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 292 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 83.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.6%, 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 38,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% 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 14,000 minutes out of 38,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 38,147 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 94.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.96% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.1% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 495 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 runs 78.2% on time across 3,122 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 3,125 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 90.0% on time and August 75.5%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 3,095 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
OKC to DEN questions
How often is OKC 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 19.5% of the 3,125 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on OKC to DEN?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 85.1% on time across 1,140 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 72.9%, a gap of 12 points. 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 OKC to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.9%, 27 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 OKC to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 75.5% on time, compared with 90.0% in November. Across the year that is 15 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 OKC — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on OKC to DEN85.1%
- Southwest Airlines on OKC to DEN79.6%
- Frontier Airlines on OKC to DEN78.0%
- United Airlines on OKC to DEN72.9%
- OKC to DFW, a related route79.3%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- OKC to ORD, a related route75.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record78.0%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. OKC to DEN and DEN to OKC 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.