Route profile
DEN→SAT
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Denver to San Antonio, 794 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 56% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 9,641 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
DEN → SAT arrives on time 76.5% of the time; the return trip, SAT → DEN, arrives on time 82.3% of the time, a 5.8-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DEN → SAT spends 22.0 minutes on the ground on a 794-mile trip: 17.6 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DEN and 4.4 minutes from touchdown to gate at SAT.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where DEN to SAT differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
DEN to SAT struggles most at 7 PM: 54.3% of its flights scheduled then arrive on time, 13.3 points behind the 67.6% on routes of similar length at the same hour. Against all other routes the gap is 13.5 points.
DEN to SAT is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 1 PM: 83.4% arrive on time, 5.5 points ahead of the 77.9% those routes manage at that hour. Against all other routes the gap is 6.3 points.
In June, DEN to SAT runs 5.9 points below routes of similar length, 65.9% on time to 71.8%. Against all other routes the gap is 6.8 points.
December is kinder to DEN to SAT than to routes of similar length: 83.4% on time against 79.0%, 4.4 points better. Against all other routes the gap is 4.6 points.
Frontier Airlines does better on DEN to SAT than on its routes of similar length: 76.9% on time here, 71.7% there, 5.2 points apart. Against all other routes the gap is 5.7 points.
DEN to SAT against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 7 PM departures | 54.3% | routes of similar length | 67.6% | −13.3 pts | 359 here, 128,794 there |
| Hour: 1 PM departures | 83.4% | routes of similar length | 77.9% | +5.5 pts | 1,548 here, 129,030 there |
| Month: June | 65.9% | routes of similar length | 71.8% | −5.9 pts | 830 here, 183,488 there |
| Month: December | 83.4% | routes of similar length | 79.0% | +4.4 pts | 827 here, 177,422 there |
| Airline: Frontier Airlines | 76.9% | routes of similar length | 71.7% | +5.2 pts | 853 here, 109,832 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 794 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
Why DEN → SAT flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DEN → SAT cancelled 55 of 9,641 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 175. The reason filed most often was the airline, 50.9% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 344 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 55 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
28 cancellations, 50.9% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
22 cancellations, 40.0% 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, 9.1% 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.
55 coded cancellations were recorded on DEN → SAT; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
45 min late
against a median of 4 min early
Percentiles over 9,641 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SAT after arriving from DEN.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 40% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 23% | High risk |
| 60 min | 14% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 7.4% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.2% | 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 0.57% of the time and diverts 0.23% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 9,564 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 45 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 9,641 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DEN → SAT flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 89.9% of the time, against 63.0% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 26.9 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 88.2% on time from 214 flights
- 6 AM: 92.7% on time from 248 flights
- 7 AM: 88.8% on time from 308 flights
- 8 AM: 90.1% on time from 363 flights
- 9 AM: 86.5% on time from 1,296 flights
- 10 AM: 85.2% on time from 459 flights
- 11 AM: 81.0% on time from 286 flights
- 12 PM: 82.5% on time from 288 flights
- 1 PM: 83.4% on time from 1,557 flights
- 2 PM: 72.7% on time from 187 flights
- 3 PM: 68.3% on time from 538 flights
- 4 PM: 62.9% on time from 449 flights
- 5 PM: 70.0% on time from 1,359 flights
- 6 PM: 65.7% on time from 284 flights
- 7 PM: 54.3% on time from 361 flights
- 8 PM: 67.4% on time from 1,069 flights
- 9 PM: 60.6% on time from 296 flights
- 10 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DEN → SAT 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 → SAT. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DEN → SAT, at 53.7%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 89.9% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 63.0%.
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 | 4,633 | 73.1% | 0.50% | -2 min | 7.9% |
| United Airlines | 4,097 | 80.3% | 0.54% | -6 min | 6.9% |
| Frontier Airlines | 861 | 76.9% | 0.81% | -7 min | 7.5% |
Southwest Airlines flew 48.3% of the 9,591 flights listed.
United Airlines arrived on time 7.2 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA1022 United Airlines | 1:41 PM | 960 | 87.0% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 6.1 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 75.1%
- Feb: 81.7%
- Mar: 78.2%
- Apr: 78.8%
- May: 76.1%
- Jun: 65.9%
- Jul: 64.7%
- Aug: 72.9%
- Sep: 81.7%
- Oct: 82.2%
- Nov: 84.1%
- Dec: 83.4%
July is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 19.4 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 60.4% from 272 flights
- August 2023: 74.1% from 267 flights
- September 2023: 76.6% from 262 flights
- October 2023: 76.1% from 276 flights
- November 2023: 84.6% from 268 flights
- December 2023: 84.8% from 283 flights
- January 2024: 74.9% from 251 flights
- February 2024: 78.5% from 229 flights
- March 2024: 76.1% from 273 flights
- April 2024: 77.6% from 269 flights
- May 2024: 75.2% from 276 flights
- June 2024: 73.6% from 291 flights
- July 2024: 72.0% from 302 flights
- August 2024: 69.5% from 272 flights
- September 2024: 86.8% from 257 flights
- October 2024: 87.3% from 276 flights
- November 2024: 80.3% from 264 flights
- December 2024: 89.8% from 264 flights
- January 2025: 71.7% from 226 flights
- February 2025: 82.2% from 198 flights
- March 2025: 85.0% from 268 flights
- April 2025: 73.7% from 236 flights
- May 2025: 73.9% from 273 flights
- June 2025: 61.5% from 267 flights
- July 2025: 57.6% from 278 flights
- August 2025: 75.3% from 239 flights
- September 2025: 81.8% from 220 flights
- October 2025: 83.3% from 252 flights
- November 2025: 87.6% from 243 flights
- December 2025: 76.2% from 282 flights
- January 2026: 78.6% from 225 flights
- February 2026: 85.0% from 193 flights
- March 2026: 73.8% from 299 flights
- April 2026: 84.7% from 250 flights
- May 2026: 79.3% from 267 flights
- June 2026: 62.1% from 282 flights
- July 2026: 67.9% from 291 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 77.4% against 76.5% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 9,641 DEN → SAT 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