Route reliability record
RIC→DEN
Richmond to Denver
- Flights
- 818
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,481 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 818 RIC to DEN flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly RIC to DEN: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.5%, against 69.5% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 78 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 804 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.86%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
81.8% on time across 439 flights
These figures cover 818 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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 RIC 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 | 439 | 81.8% | 72 min | 0.91% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 89 | 71.9% | 71 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 290 | 50.3% | 60 min | 1.03% | F |
Flight by flight
Flights on RIC 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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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 42 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am32 flights71.9%
- 8am–11am369 flights87.1%
- 11am–2pm70 flights83.8%
- 2pm–5pm198 flights45.5%
- 5pm–8pm149 flights50.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 35% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.1% of the time, against 45.5% for the afternoon window. That is 42 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 369 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RIC 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 RIC to DEN, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.1% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 45.5%, a wide gap of 41.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am71.9%
- 8–11am87.1%
- 11am–2pm83.8%
- 2–5pm45.5%
- 5–8pm50.3%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 35% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 38 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.
June is the worst month at 53.3% on time, 38 points below November, the best at 91.2%. 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 97 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 64.9%, a spread of 17 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 16,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,441 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 15,923 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.1% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.86%, 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
10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,481 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 runs 71.7% on time across 818 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 818 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. 818 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 69.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 804 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RIC to DEN questions
How often is RIC to DEN delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.5% of the 818 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is RIC to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
69.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on RIC to DEN?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 45.5%, 42 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 June delays on RIC to DEN?
June is the weakest month at 53.3% on time, compared with 91.2% in November. Across the year that is 38 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 RIC — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on RIC to DEN81.8%
- Southwest Airlines on RIC to DEN50.3%
- RIC to ATL, a related route88.5%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- RIC to CLT, a related route82.9%
- United Airlines on-time record81.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record71.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record50.3%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. RIC to DEN and DEN to RIC 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.