Carrier route record
OORAP→DEN
SkyWest Airlines · Rapid City to Denver
- Flights
- 2,126
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 74%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on RAP to DEN lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,126 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on RAP to DEN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,088 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.51%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.0%
Every carrier on RAP to DEN, 2,887 flights
These figures cover 2,126 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on RAP to DEN
SkyWest flew 2,126 of the 2,887 flights on RAP to DEN, most of the route. Its 77.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 82.4% to SkyWest at 77.8%.
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 Airlines | 761 | 82.4% | 60 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 2,126 | 77.8% | 85 min | 1.51% | B |
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on RAP to DEN
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am359 flights86.6%
- 8am–11am524 flights79.1%
- 11am–2pm532 flights87.0%
- 2pm–5pm457 flights63.0%
- 5pm–8pm254 flights69.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 87.0% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 63.0%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 532 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on RAP to DEN through the year
July is the worst month at 65.2% on time, 23 points below November, the best at 88.5%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 214 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 85.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.7%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
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 40,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 15%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 15% 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 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 39,548 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 15,000 of the 40,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.51% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 301 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 78.6% on time across 2,125 flights, within about a point 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 2,126 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.
What to do with this
Booking SkyWest on RAP to DEN
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 88.5% on time and July 65.2%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,088 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.