DENVER (KDVR) — Flight delays, by and large, aren’t fun.
If you’ve ever been the victim of a terribly-timed flight delay at Denver International Airport, you might wonder if there are any particular carriers that see departure delays out of Denver more often than others.
FOX31 looked at U.S. Department of Transportation statistics for flights out of DIA for five major carriers — American, Delta, Frontier, Southwest and United — to find out which airline had the most delays.
Which airline saw the most delays in 2022?
When it came to departure delays in Denver last year, one airline stuck out, and not in a great way.
Over 80,000 Southwest Airlines flights departed from Denver in 2022. Of those, a little over half — 56% — were on time, with 39% of flights seeing delays of over 15 minutes, according to the statistics.
You can compare this to United Airlines, which had around the same number of departures from Denver as Southwest did. In 2022, 73% of United flights out of DIA were on time, with 25% of departures seeing delays of over 15 minutes.
The following are the on-time, delayed and canceled flight statistics for the five most popular carriers out of DIA last year:
- American Airlines: 79.5% on-time, 18.2% delayed. 2.3% canceled
- Delta Airlines: 80.3% on-time, 18.1% delayed, 1.5% canceled
- Frontier Airlines: 70.7% on-time, 27.7% delayed, 1.4% canceled
- Southwest Airlines: 56.3% on-time, 39.4% delayed, 4.1% canceled
- United Airlines: 73.3% on time, 25.3% delayed, 1.3% canceled
American and Delta fared the best out of all the carriers, although both had the lowest number of departures overall.
How is 2023 faring for flight delays?
In the first few months of this year, Southwest still had the lowest number of on-time flights, but at 64%, their fortunes have improved slightly from 2022.
From January to April, 33% of Southwest flights from Denver were delayed, compared to 25.9% of United flights and 29% of Frontier flights:
- American Airlines: 77.8% on-time, 20.5% delayed. 1.5% canceled
- Delta Airlines: 75.6% on-time, 22.1% delayed, 2.2% canceled
- Frontier Airlines: 68.4% on-time, 29.9% delayed, 1.6% canceled
- Southwest Airlines: 64% on-time, 33.4% delayed, 2.4% canceled
- United Airlines: 73.5% on time, 25.9% delayed, .5% canceled
Overall, just under 80% of departures at DIA were on time in the first part of 2023, with 27% of flights being delayed and 1.9% of flights being canceled.
