Route reliability record
RIC→DEN
Richmond to Denver
- Flights
- 756
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,481 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 756 RIC to DEN flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly RIC to DEN: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.6%, against 73.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 40 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 742 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
83.5% on time across 395 flights
These figures cover 756 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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 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 | 395 | 83.5% | 77 min | 1.01% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 64 | 75.0% | 50 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 297 | 59.9% | 54 min | 1.01% | D |
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.
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 38 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–8am37 flights70.3%
- 8am–11am369 flights85.7%
- 11am–2pm100 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm157 flights47.7%
- 5pm–8pm93 flights59.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 85.7% of the time, against 47.7% for the afternoon window. That is 38 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.
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. June was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.1%. 22 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 49%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, 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 5,910 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,012 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.93%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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. 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 69.2% on time across 756 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 756 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. 756 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 73.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 742 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RIC to DEN questions
How often is RIC to DEN delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.4% of the 756 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is RIC to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
73.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 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 85.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 47.7%, 38 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 DEN83.5%
- Southwest Airlines on RIC to DEN59.9%
- RIC to ATL, a related route88.7%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- RIC to CLT, a related route83.4%
- United Airlines on-time record83.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record75.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record59.9%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.