Carrier route record
WNRIC→DEN
Southwest Airlines · Richmond to Denver
- Flights
- 297
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on RIC to DEN draws a D. Roughly one flight in two arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about 55 minutes behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 297 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on RIC to DEN runs 18 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 177 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
59.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 289 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.01%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.6%
Every carrier on RIC to DEN, 756 flights
These figures cover 297 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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
Southwest against every carrier on RIC to DEN
Southwest flew 297 of the 756 flights on RIC to DEN, about 39% of it. Its 59.9% on time is 14 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 73.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 83.5% to Southwest at 59.9%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 Airlines (this page)thin sample | 297 | 59.9% | 54 min | 1.01% | D |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
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–8am36 flights72.2%
- 8am–11am5 flights—
- 11am–2pm100 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm127 flights45.1%
- 5pm–8pm29 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 35% 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 83.5% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 45.1%. 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 127 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on RIC to DEN through the year
- Jul–Sep 202591 flights72.4%
- Oct–Dec 202567 flights63.6%
- Jan–Mar 202657 flights65.5%
- Apr–Jun 202682 flights39.5%
Scale runs 30% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 59.9% on time across 297 flights.
Southwest on RIC to DEN did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 72.4% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 39.5%, a swing of 33 points on roughly 74 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 44.4%. 41 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest 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 6,286 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, 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 2,440 of the 6,286 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,286 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.01% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.68%.
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. 9.3% 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.
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 runs 60.0% on time across 297 flights, within half a point 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. 297 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on RIC to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 297 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 59.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 289 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.