Route reliability record
RKS→DEN
Rock Springs to Denver
- Flights
- 728
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 260 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 2.7 hours on average. That rests on 728 RKS to DEN flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 720 completed flights
Avg delay
161 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
82.1% on time across 728 flights
These figures cover 728 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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 RKS 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 728 | 82.1% | 161 min | 0.27% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on RKS 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 11 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights87.6%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm5 flights—
- 2pm–5pm359 flights76.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.6% of the time, against 76.8% for the afternoon window. That is 11 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RKS 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 RKS to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 76.8%, a wide gap of 10.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.6%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm76.8%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 76.3% on time, 20 points below November, the best at 96.6%. 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.2%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,995 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 20,788 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 87.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, 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
10.7% 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.
At 260 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.5% on time across 728 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. 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 82.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 720 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RKS to DEN questions
How often is RKS to DEN delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.9% of the 728 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.7 hours on average.
How reliable is RKS to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
82.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on RKS to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 76.8%, 11 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 RKS to DEN?
July is the weakest month at 76.3% on time, compared with 96.6% in November. Across the year that is 20 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 RKS — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- LAX to DEN, a related route81.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. RKS to DEN and DEN to RKS 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.