Carrier route record
WNRSW→DEN
Southwest Airlines · Fort Myers to Denver
- Flights
- 315
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on RSW to DEN 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 315 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on RSW to DEN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 314 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.32%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.8%
Every carrier on RSW to DEN, 1,133 flights
These figures cover 315 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 RSW to DEN
Southwest flew 315 of the 1,133 flights on RSW to DEN, about 28% of it. Its 73.9% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.8% to Frontier at 71.9%. 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 | 760 | 85.8% | 74 min | 0.26% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 315 | 73.9% | 60 min | 0.32% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 58 | 71.9% | 98 min | 1.72% | C |
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 43 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–8am67 flights95.5%
- 8am–11am34 flights88.2%
- 11am–2pm128 flights74.2%
- 2pm–5pm66 flights53.0%
- 5pm–8pm20 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.5% of the time, against 53.0% for the afternoon window. That is 43 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 128 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on RSW to DEN through the year
December is the weak month at 60.6% on time, against 93.5% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 35 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Saturday the weakest at 64.2%. 17 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 4,897 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 4,897 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 4,897 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 95.5% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.32%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs
8.0% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,607 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 66.8% on time across 315 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 315 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 RSW to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 315 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 73.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 314 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RSW to DEN, every carrier
- Southwest on DEN to RSW, the return leg
- United Airlines on RSW to DEN85.8%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.