Originally Posted by arf04

I expect that your friend will be on the afternoon flight, so the only issue is that there is a large LH flight that comes in around that time and immigration can be busy. Sometimes you can beat the LH folks, especially if the plane is early. I suggest your friend get a seat as close to the front as possible and hustle the fairly long walk from from the gate to immigration. Immigration is actually quite efficient in DEN so he shouldn't be terrified if there are tons of people. The line will move quickly. They do have Global Entry machines, if that is an option.

Checking or not checking a bag makes no difference. On the YQR-DEN flight the bag (unless it is tiny) will have to be gate checked (similar to AC Sky Check) and it is only reclaimed after immigration. If the bag is checked right through, it will still come up at immigration. If time is tight, then he can still grab it there and not recheck it. Security should be ok at that time. I've rarely spent more than 10-15 minutes in the security lines at DEN. The last time I breezed through in 5 minutes, and that was in the regular line.

1h 20 should be plenty of time. I like 1h 15 for comfort and find that I'm easily at the gate within an hour.