Route profile
DCA→DEN
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Washington to Denver, 1,476 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 40% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 4,366 flights. How this is calculated
DCA → DEN arrives on time 79.2% of the time; the return trip, DEN → DCA, arrives on time 78.9% of the time.
DCA → DEN spends 32.8 minutes on the ground on a 1,476-mile trip: 19.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DCA and 13.6 minutes from touchdown to gate at DEN.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
51 min late
against a median of 9 min early
DCA → DEN has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 9 min early, but the worst tenth are 60 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 4,366 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at DEN after arriving from DCA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 34% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 20% | High risk |
| 60 min | 14% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 8.6% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 6.0% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.10% of the time and diverts 0.44% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 4,299 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 51 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 4,366 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DCA → DEN flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 86.5% of the time, against 66.9% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 19.6 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 6 AM: too few flights to score
- 7 AM: 86.9% on time from 972 flights
- 8 AM: 83.9% on time from 151 flights
- 9 AM to 11 AM: too few flights to score
- 12 PM: 82.8% on time from 207 flights
- 1 PM: 87.3% on time from 722 flights
- 2 PM: 84.2% on time from 135 flights
- 3 PM: too few flights to score
- 4 PM: 76.6% on time from 1,104 flights
- 5 PM: too few flights to score
- 6 PM: 66.9% on time from 1,056 flights
- 7 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DCA → DEN runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DCA → DEN. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DCA → DEN, at 39.7%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 86.5% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 66.9%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 3,240 | 79.9% | 1.36% | -10 min | 8.0% |
| United Airlines | 1,126 | 76.9% | 0.36% | -5 min | 10.9% |
Frontier Airlines flew 74.2% of the 4,366 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 1.36% of its flights here against 0.36% for United Airlines.
Frontier Airlines arrived on time 3.0 percentage points more often than United Airlines on this route.
Other ways to fly Washington to Denver
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
| Route | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IAD→DEN Washington to Denver | 10,260 | 81.5% | 0.87% | -7 min | 72 |
| DCA→DEN this route Washington to Denver | 4,366 | 79.2% | 1.10% | -9 min | 62 |
IAD → DEN is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 81.5% on time, against 79.2% for DCA → DEN.
Flying to DEN from the Washington area? Compare DCA, BWI, IAD for DEN, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
F9685 (7:00 AM) arrived on time 86.6% of the time, 20.4 points more often than F9689 (6:00 PM) at 66.2%.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 7.2 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 80.5%
- Feb: 74.4%
- Mar: 84.3%
- Apr: 77.7%
- May: 74.9%
- Jun: 75.2%
- Jul: 74.1%
- Aug: 75.1%
- Sep: 82.9%
- Oct: 83.4%
- Nov: 82.5%
- Dec: 85.6%
July is historically the weakest month and December the strongest, a spread of 11.5 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 70.7% from 123 flights
- August 2023: 77.5% from 124 flights
- September 2023: 83.9% from 120 flights
- October 2023: 83.7% from 123 flights
- November 2023: too few flights to score (119)
- December 2023: 91.9% from 124 flights
- January 2024: 81.5% from 124 flights
- February 2024: too few flights to score (116)
- March 2024: 86.8% from 124 flights
- April 2024: 78.8% from 120 flights
- May 2024: 71.5% from 124 flights
- June 2024: too few flights to score (119)
- July 2024: 79.7% from 124 flights
- August 2024: 70.0% from 124 flights
- September 2024: 88.1% from 120 flights
- October 2024: 79.0% from 124 flights
- November 2024: 79.8% from 120 flights
- December 2024: 90.3% from 124 flights
- January 2025: 78.2% from 124 flights
- February 2025: too few flights to score (112)
- March 2025: 86.1% from 123 flights
- April 2025: 72.3% from 120 flights
- May 2025: 71.9% from 123 flights
- June 2025: too few flights to score (109)
- July 2025: too few flights to score (113)
- August 2025: too few flights to score (115)
- September 2025: too few flights to score (110)
- October 2025: too few flights to score (115)
- November 2025: too few flights to score (112)
- December 2025: too few flights to score (114)
- January 2026: too few flights to score (116)
- February 2026: too few flights to score (104)
- March 2026: too few flights to score (115)
- April 2026: too few flights to score (109)
- May 2026: too few flights to score (116)
- June 2026: too few flights to score (110)
- July 2026: too few flights to score (110)
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 79.1% against 76.6% in the 12 months before — improving by 2.5 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 4,366 DCA → DEN flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed