Route reliability record
SAF→DEN
Santa Fe to Denver
- Flights
- 1,684
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 303 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,684 SAF to DEN flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly SAF to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.4% of the time and Saturday flights 84.9%, against 79.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,655 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.19%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
79.0% on time across 1,684 flights
These figures cover 1,684 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SAF 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 | 1,684 | 79.0% | 92 min | 1.19% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on SAF 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Santa Fe to Denver
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ABQ → DENAlbuquerque to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 85.7% | 86.2% | 0.55% | 5am–8am, Sat | OO 5834 10:45 |
| 2. ABQ → DENAlbuquerque to Denver | United Airlines | 82.3% | 83.0% | 0.83% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 621 07:00 |
| 3. ABQ → DENAlbuquerque to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 79.2% | 79.6% | 0.48% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. SAF → DENSanta Fe to Denver | SkyWest Airlines | 78.1% | 79.0% | 1.19% | 5am–8am, Sat | OO 5495 07:00 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights86.4%
- 8am–11am318 flights86.0%
- 11am–2pm383 flights78.4%
- 2pm–5pm279 flights78.3%
- 5pm–8pm340 flights65.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.4% of the time, against 65.6% for the evening window. That is 21 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 383 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAF 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 SAF to DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.6%, a wide gap of 20.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.4%
- 8–11am86.0%
- 11am–2pm78.4%
- 2–5pm78.3%
- 5–8pm65.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
August is the worst month at 64.9% on time, 24 points below November, the best at 89.2%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.5%, a spread of 12 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 32,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 32,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 31,925 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.19% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.53%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.1% 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 303 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 runs 81.0% on time across 1,684 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,684 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DEN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 89.2% on time and August 64.9%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,655 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAF to DEN questions
How often is SAF to DEN delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.0% of the 1,684 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is SAF to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
79.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAF to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.6%, 21 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 August delays on SAF to DEN?
August is the weakest month at 64.9% on time, compared with 89.2% in November. Across the year that is 24 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 SAF — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- SAF to DFW, a related route79.5%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record79.0%
- 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. SAF to DEN and DEN to SAF are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed SAF to DEN’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.