Which Flight Routes Get Diverted Most Often?

Four of the ten most-diverted U.S. flight routes land at Aspen, Colorado — Chicago O'Hare to Aspen tops the list at 5.6% diverted, more than 20 times the national average of 0.26%. Mountain terrain drives the Aspen cluster; Las Vegas-to-Hawaii routes form a second cluster tied to long overwater legs and tighter fuel margins.

• Chicago O'Hare to Aspen (ORD-ASE) diverts on 5.6% of flights — the highest rate of any U.S. route with more than 1,000 flights in FlightRecord's dataset.
• Four of the five most-diverted routes in the country land at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport: from O'Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Los Angeles — all flown by the same regional carrier.
• Las Vegas to Hawaii is the next cluster: Las Vegas to Kahului (OGG) diverts 3.9% of flights, Las Vegas to Honolulu (HNL) diverts 3.2%, both several times the national average.
• The national diversion rate across every U.S. domestic route in the dataset is just 0.26% — these routes divert 8 to 21 times more often.
• Based on FlightRecord's dataset of 14.1 million U.S. DOT flight records, June 2024-May 2026.

Which flight routes get diverted the most often?

Ranking every U.S. domestic route with more than 1,000 flights over the past 24 months by diversion percentage — the share of flights that landed somewhere other than their scheduled destination — the same two clusters dominate the top of the list: mountain airports around Aspen, Colorado, and long overwater legs into Hawaii.

• ORD → ASE — 5.6% diverted (1,999 flights)
• DFW → ASE — 5.5% diverted (2,397 flights)
• IAH → ASE — 4.9% diverted (1,218 flights)
• LAX → ASE — 4.5% diverted (2,416 flights)
• LAS → OGG — 3.9% diverted (1,561 flights)
• LAS → HNL — 3.2% diverted (3,864 flights)
• JAC → LAX — 2.3% diverted (1,194 flights)
• LGA → OKC — 2.2% diverted (1,870 flights)
• STT → ATL — 2.2% diverted (1,368 flights)
• LAS → DCA — 2.0% diverted (1,194 flights)

Past the top ten, the pattern gets noisier — smaller regional routes into weather-exposed airports like Arcata-Eureka (SFO-ACV) and Cody, Wyoming (DEN-COD) also show elevated diversion rates, but Aspen and Hawaii are the only clusters with enough flight volume to call a genuine pattern rather than a statistical fluke.

Why does Aspen show up four times in the top five?

Aspen-Pitkin County Airport sits at 7,820 feet in a narrow mountain valley ringed by peaks over 12,000 feet, with a single runway and an instrument approach so demanding that pilots need special airport-specific certification before they're allowed to fly it. When crosswinds, low cloud ceilings, or mountain turbulence push conditions below minimums, inbound flights don't have the option of circling and waiting — they divert, typically to Grand Junction or Denver, and passengers finish the trip by ground transport or a later flight.

The airport's own numbers back up the pattern: Aspen's overall cancellation rate is 6.1%, more than triple the national rate, and its on-time arrival rate of 69.6% trails the national figure by nearly nine points. Every flight into Aspen from Chicago O'Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Los Angeles in this dataset is operated by SkyWest Airlines — the country's largest regional carrier, which flies routes on behalf of United, American, Delta, and Alaska under those airlines' regional brands. That's a useful reminder that the ticket you bought under a major airline's name doesn't always tell you who's actually flying the plane.

What's driving the Las Vegas-to-Hawaii diversions?

The second cluster looks nothing like the first. There's no mountain valley involved — Las Vegas to Honolulu and Las Vegas to Kahului are both roughly five-hour overwater legs, and flights that long run tighter fuel margins than a typical domestic hop. When Pacific headwinds, weather at the destination, or an in-flight mechanical issue eats into that margin, diverting to the nearest usable airport — often another island, or back to the mainland — is the safer call than pushing on to the original destination.

Both routes carry enough volume that the pattern isn't a small-sample fluke: Las Vegas to Honolulu logged 3,864 flights in the dataset and still diverted 3.2% of the time, while Las Vegas to Kahului diverted 3.9% across 1,561 flights. Three different carriers fly these routes — Hawaiian Airlines, Southwest, and Alaska Airlines — which rules out an airline-specific explanation and points back to geography and flight length.

Does a high diversion rate mean the airline is unreliable?

Not on these routes. The Aspen cluster is flown entirely by a single regional operator, and the Hawaii cluster is split across three carriers with very different business models — a legacy island carrier, a budget carrier, and a full-service hybrid. What they share isn't an airline, it's a flight path: difficult terrain in one case, a long overwater leg in the other. FlightRecord's separate looks at which carriers divert most often and which specific flight numbers divert most often use the same DOT data from a different angle — worth reading alongside this one if you're trying to isolate whether it's the airline or the route driving your risk.

How is a diversion different from a delay or a cancellation?

For this analysis, FlightRecord looked at every U.S. domestic route with more than 1,000 flights across the 24-month dataset and ranked each one by diversion percentage. The Department of Transportation tracks diversions as a separate outcome from both delays and cancellations. A cancelled flight never departs. A delayed flight departs and lands at its scheduled destination, just late — DOT counts a flight on-time if it arrives fewer than 15 minutes after schedule. A diverted flight departs but lands somewhere other than the ticketed destination, usually due to weather, a mechanical issue, or fuel. FlightRecord excludes cancelled and diverted flights from delay averages, exactly as DOT does, and reports each rate on its own — see the site's methodology for the full breakdown.

Diversion rates are historical patterns based on two years of DOT data — they describe how a route has behaved on average, not a guarantee of what any single upcoming flight will do. Weather, aircraft, and operational conditions vary flight to flight.

Frequently Asked Questions

What counts as a flight diversion under DOT rules?

A diversion is any flight that departs as scheduled but lands at an airport other than its ticketed destination — commonly triggered by weather at the destination, a mechanical issue, a medical emergency, or low fuel reserves. It's tracked separately from both delays and cancellations in DOT's On-Time Performance data, and FlightRecord reports it the same way.

Why is Aspen's airport so prone to diversions?

Aspen-Pitkin County Airport sits at high elevation in a narrow mountain valley with a single runway and a demanding instrument approach that requires special pilot certification. When weather drops below the airport's minimums — low clouds, high crosswinds, or mountain turbulence — inbound flights can't circle and wait; they divert to an alternate like Grand Junction or Denver instead.

Are Las Vegas-to-Hawaii flights more likely to divert than other routes?

Yes. Las Vegas to Honolulu diverts 3.2% of the time and Las Vegas to Kahului diverts 3.9%, both well above the 0.26% national average across all U.S. domestic routes. Both are long overwater legs where weather or fuel-margin issues are more likely to force a diversion than on a typical shorter domestic flight.

How common is a flight diversion overall?

Rare. Across every U.S. domestic route in FlightRecord's 14.1-million-flight dataset, the weighted national diversion rate is 0.26% — roughly 1 in 385 flights. Even the highest-diverting route in the country, Chicago O'Hare to Aspen at 5.6%, still lands the large majority of its flights at the intended destination.

Does a diverted flight count as a delay in on-time statistics?

No. DOT — and FlightRecord — excludes diverted flights from on-time and average-delay calculations, reporting diversion rate as its own separate metric alongside cancellation rate. A flight can be diverted without being counted as late, since it never completed its scheduled routing at all.