Equipment issue delays more than 400 flights at Denver International Airport

Lauren Penington, The Denver Post on Sep 18, 2025

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DENVER — An equipment issue at a Federal Aviation Administration radar center near Denver International Airport delayed hundreds of flights on Thursday.

Flights arriving Thursday morning and afternoon at DIA were delayed by an average of 30 minutes, and flights trying to depart the airport were delayed by an average of 45 minutes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Delays had largely lifted by 3 p.m. Thursday.

As of 3 p.m., 435 flights had been delayed at DIA and three were canceled, according to flight tracking data from FlightAware.

FAA officials attributed the delays to an equipment issue at Denver’s terminal radar approach control facility (TRACON) in a statement to The Denver Post.

The issue wasn’t with the radar itself, but with the automation that typically accompanies a flight moving in and out of an airspace, an FAA spokesperson stated.

Instead of the flight changing control centers automatically, staff needed to make the change manually, which takes much longer, according to the spokesperson.

No additional information, including the cause of the malfunction, was available.

Southwest delayed 192 flights on Thursday, followed by 136 United flights, 53 SkyWest flights and 18 Frontier flights. Another 11 airlines delayed between one and eight flights.