Route reliability record
PSP→DEN
Palm Springs to Denver
- Flights
- 2,027
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 776 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,027 PSP to DEN flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 577 at 87.4% on time.
Best time to fly PSP to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.5%, against 82.5% for the route overall.
SkyWest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 87.4% on time across 577 flights.
Key figures
On time
82.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,006 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.84%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
87.4% on time across 577 flights
These figures cover 2,027 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 PSP to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 87.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 80.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 542 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 577 | 87.4% | 101 min | 0.52% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 878 | 80.8% | 73 min | 1.25% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 542 | 80.0% | 51 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 30 | 80.0% | 148 min | 0.00% | B+ |
SkyWest leads Southwest by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Palm Springs 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. PSP → DENPalm Springs to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 86.9% | 87.4% | 0.52% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. PSP → DENPalm Springs to Denver | United Airlines | 79.8% | 80.8% | 1.25% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. PSP → DENPalm Springs to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 79.6% | 80.0% | 0.55% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am558 flights90.4%
- 8am–11am437 flights86.4%
- 11am–2pm656 flights78.6%
- 2pm–5pm374 flights72.4%
- 5pm–8pm2 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.4% of the time, against 72.4% 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 656 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PSP 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 PSP to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.4% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 72.4%, a wide gap of 18.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.4%
- 8–11am86.4%
- 11am–2pm78.6%
- 2–5pm72.4%
- 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 14 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 88.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 223 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 79.4%, a spread of 6 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 26,000 reported delay minutes.
- 33%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 90.4% on time here. The split is drawn from 25,682 reported delay minutes.
No single cause dominates. carrier at 33%, late-arriving aircraft at 32% and national airspace system at 31% split the 26,000 reported delay minutes between them. An even spread like this usually means the operation is running close to its designed capacity with no one obvious weak point, and it is the hardest pattern for a traveller to route around.
Cancellations are rare at 0.84%, 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
6.6% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 776 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 76.6% on time across 2,026 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,027 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. October runs 88.7% on time and March 74.7%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 2,006 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PSP to DEN questions
How often is PSP 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 17.5% of the 2,027 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PSP to DEN?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 87.4% on time across 577 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 80.0%, a gap of 7 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 PSP to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.4%, 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 March delays on PSP to DEN?
March is the weakest month at 74.7% on time, compared with 88.7% in October. Across the year that is 14 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 PSP — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on PSP to DEN87.4%
- United Airlines on PSP to DEN80.8%
- Southwest Airlines on PSP to DEN80.0%
- PSP to SFO, a related route61.1%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- PSP to SEA, a related route87.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record87.4%
- United Airlines on-time record80.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record80.0%
- 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. PSP to DEN and DEN to PSP 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.