Route reliability record
RDM→DEN
Redmond to Denver
- Flights
- 728
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 898 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 728 RDM to DEN flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 76 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 715 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.96%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
85.2% on time across 728 flights
These figures cover 728 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on RDM 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 Airlines | 728 | 85.2% | 72 min | 0.96% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on RDM 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.
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 728 flights.
- 5am–8am364 flights87.4%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm364 flights82.9%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 87.4% on time for the 5am–8am window against 82.9% for 11am–2pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
July is the worst month at 71.7% on time, 23 points below April, the best at 95.0%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 92.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 76.0%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 7,662 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 3,210 of the 7,662 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,662 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 87.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.96% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 898 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 70.8% on time across 728 flights, 14 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 14 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 728 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. 728 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 85.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 715 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RDM to DEN questions
How often is RDM to DEN delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.8% of the 728 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is RDM to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
85.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 8 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on RDM to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.4% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 82.9%, 5 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 July delays on RDM to DEN?
July is the weakest month at 71.7% on time, compared with 95.0% in April. Across the year that is 23 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 RDM — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- RDM to SEA, a related route85.4%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- RDM to SFO, a related route66.7%
- United Airlines on-time record85.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. RDM to DEN and DEN to RDM 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.