Route profile
DEN→MCI
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Denver to Kansas City, 533 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 52% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 13,242 flights. How this is calculated
DEN → MCI arrives on time 76.7% of the time; the return trip, MCI → DEN, arrives on time 78.2% of the time.
DEN → MCI spends 23.5 minutes on the ground on a 533-mile trip: 17.8 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DEN and 5.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at MCI.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route has stayed remarkably steady year over year, a smaller swing than 100% of 5,368 comparable routes.
76.7% on time over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), against 76.7% in the 12 months before (2024-08 to 2025-07), virtually unchanged.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 5,368 in the comparison.
Why DEN → MCI flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DEN → MCI cancelled 97 of 13,242 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 137. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 72.2% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 189 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 97 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
70 cancellations, 72.2% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
22 cancellations, 22.7% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
5 cancellations, 5.2% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
97 coded cancellations were recorded on DEN → MCI; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
46 min late
against a median of 3 min early
Percentiles over 13,242 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at MCI after arriving from DEN.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 42% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 22% | High risk |
| 60 min | 14% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 7.4% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.3% | Low 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 0.73% of the time and diverts 0.14% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 13,126 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 46 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 13,242 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DEN → MCI flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 92.6% of the time, against 64.1% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 28.5 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 94.0% on time from 373 flights
- 6 AM: 93.0% on time from 631 flights
- 7 AM: 91.8% on time from 548 flights
- 8 AM: 92.1% on time from 884 flights
- 9 AM: 86.2% on time from 836 flights
- 10 AM: 84.0% on time from 1,325 flights
- 11 AM: 83.4% on time from 475 flights
- 12 PM: 77.1% on time from 343 flights
- 1 PM: 81.1% on time from 1,550 flights
- 2 PM: 75.2% on time from 500 flights
- 3 PM: 66.2% on time from 542 flights
- 4 PM: 67.5% on time from 530 flights
- 5 PM: 65.3% on time from 1,407 flights
- 6 PM: 66.2% on time from 650 flights
- 7 PM: 59.4% on time from 501 flights
- 8 PM: 66.6% on time from 1,412 flights
- 9 PM: 64.7% on time from 606 flights
- 10 PM: 62.1% on time from 124 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DEN → MCI 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
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DEN → MCI. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DEN → MCI, at 54.8%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 92.6% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 64.1%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 4.0 times the normal rate at DEN against 2.5 times at MCI. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: DEN 2.8% against 0.7%, MCI 3.0% against 1.2%. Flights that did leave DEN in bad weather arrived on time 51.5% of the time, against 78.8% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | DEN | MCI |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 2.8% | 3.0% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 0.7% | 1.2% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 51.5% | 74.7% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 78.8% | 81.9% |
| Departures in bad weather | 92,610 | 16,876 |
Of the carriers on this route, United Airlines (1.5% cancelled against 3.5% for the other carriers at DEN) cancelled the fewest departures from DEN in bad weather and SkyWest Airlines (5.8% cancelled against 1.8% for the other carriers at DEN) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at DEN
All departures from DEN| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 30,853 | 1.5%below the others | 3.5% |
| Southwest Airlines | 28,467 | 2.4%below the others | 3.1% |
| Frontier Airlines | 6,740 | 3.1%about level | 2.8% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 19,275 | 5.8%above the others | 1.8% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from DEN and MCI, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from DEN on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: DEN (airlines), MCI, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 7,479 | 74.9% | 0.88% | -2 min | 7.3% |
| United Airlines | 4,323 | 77.6% | 0.58% | -4 min | 8.6% |
| Frontier Airlines | 819 | 79.5% | 0.49% | -7 min | 6.8% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 621 | 88.5% | 0.32% | -7 min | 3.7% |
Southwest Airlines flew 56.5% of the 13,242 flights listed.
SkyWest Airlines arrived on time 13.6 percentage points more often than Southwest Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA586 United Airlines | 1:30 PM | 1,121 | 84.0% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 5.3 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 80.0%
- Feb: 78.9%
- Mar: 79.4%
- Apr: 77.3%
- May: 72.7%
- Jun: 66.5%
- Jul: 69.3%
- Aug: 73.3%
- Sep: 79.3%
- Oct: 81.1%
- Nov: 85.0%
- Dec: 83.7%
June is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 18.5 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 67.9% from 382 flights
- August 2023: 75.4% from 409 flights
- September 2023: 77.9% from 348 flights
- October 2023: 76.4% from 385 flights
- November 2023: 87.1% from 357 flights
- December 2023: 86.1% from 369 flights
- January 2024: 76.3% from 355 flights
- February 2024: 77.3% from 331 flights
- March 2024: 81.4% from 359 flights
- April 2024: 76.8% from 350 flights
- May 2024: 76.2% from 369 flights
- June 2024: 68.3% from 376 flights
- July 2024: 71.5% from 371 flights
- August 2024: 74.6% from 364 flights
- September 2024: 87.1% from 350 flights
- October 2024: 85.4% from 371 flights
- November 2024: 80.1% from 348 flights
- December 2024: 86.8% from 334 flights
- January 2025: 78.9% from 301 flights
- February 2025: 78.2% from 284 flights
- March 2025: 84.4% from 334 flights
- April 2025: 74.6% from 338 flights
- May 2025: 70.3% from 370 flights
- June 2025: 62.8% from 379 flights
- July 2025: 61.7% from 387 flights
- August 2025: 69.8% from 369 flights
- September 2025: 73.1% from 361 flights
- October 2025: 81.7% from 393 flights
- November 2025: 87.6% from 349 flights
- December 2025: 77.9% from 336 flights
- January 2026: 85.1% from 303 flights
- February 2026: 81.5% from 293 flights
- March 2026: 72.3% from 339 flights
- April 2026: 80.4% from 338 flights
- May 2026: 71.8% from 382 flights
- June 2026: 68.3% from 419 flights
- July 2026: 75.3% from 439 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 76.7% against 76.7% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 13,242 DEN → MCI 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