Flight number record
UA 2865
United Airlines · Denver to Chicago
- Route
- DEN → ORD
- Departs
- 11:15
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 2865, check with United Airlines.
UA 2865 lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Key figures
On time
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
8.8%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Schedule
When UA 2865 flies
UA 2865 flies DEN to ORD without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 11:15, used on 214 of 365 flights, with 11:25 (49 flights) and 11:20 (49 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 11:15214 flights58.6%
- Departs 11:2549 flights13.4%
- Departs 11:2049 flights13.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 11:15 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.8%, and UA 2865 runs level with that at 78.2%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
Against the route
UA 2865 next to DEN to ORD
Every carrier on DEN to ORD combined arrived on time 71.1% of the time across 6,161 flights, so UA 2865 is 7 points ahead of it. United flew 3,756 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 71.4% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 79.0%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 2865 | 365 | 78.2% | 74 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| All United Airlines on DEN–ORD | 3,756 | 71.4% | 79 min | 0.75% | C+ |
| All carriers on DEN–ORD | 6,161 | 71.1% | 88 min | 1.07% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 821,041 | 79.0% | 72 min | 1.01% | B |
Across the year
UA 2865 quarter by quarter
Quarter by quarter UA 2865 held fairly steady: 74.7% in Jul–Sep 2025, 80.4% in Oct–Dec 2025, 78.7% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 78.9% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 6 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
- Jul–Sep 202592 flights74.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights80.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights78.7%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights78.9%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, UA 2865 did best on Monday at 88.2% on time and worst on Sunday at 67.3%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 21 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why UA 2865 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 5,879 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 2,785 minutes out of 5,879, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,879 delay minutes reported on UA 2865.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 888 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The same number turns up on seven other city pairs in the data, including ORD to BNA (205), SBA to DEN (175) and ORD to LGA (42), but none flew often enough under UA 2865 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to DEN to ORD only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking UA 2865
For a booking, read UA 2865 as 78.2% on time with 0.27% cancelled over 365 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to ORD, every carrier and departure
- ORD to DEN, the return direction
- United Airlines 2329 on the same route82.2%
- United Airlines 1023 on the same route59.8%
- United Airlines 617 on the same route66.5%
- United Airlines 1377 on the same route87.4%
- American Airlines 2771 on the same route87.5%
- United Airlines 2258 on the same route67.8%
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record
- Every United Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
A flight number here means United Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.