Flight number record
UA 617
United Airlines · Denver to Chicago
- Route
- DEN → ORD
- Departs
- 13:25
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s UA 617, check with United Airlines.
UA 617 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so UA 617 runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 85 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 356 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
11.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Schedule
When UA 617 flies
UA 617 is scheduled to leave Denver (DEN) at 13:25 local time and reach Chicago (ORD) at 17:05. That slot held for 307 of the 364 scheduled departures in the data, so the figures below describe one steady operation rather than a number that moved around the clock.
- Departs 13:25307 flights84.3%
- Departs 13:3056 flights15.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 13:25 departure sits in the 11am–2pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 78.3%, and UA 617 runs 10 points worse at 68.8%. Midday slots inherit some of the morning's delays without yet carrying the full weight of the evening's.
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Against the route
UA 617 next to DEN to ORD
Every carrier on DEN to ORD combined arrived on time 71.8% of the time across 6,109 flights, so UA 617 is 3 points behind it. United flew 3,885 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 71.9% on time. Across its whole network United Airlines managed 78.8%, which this flight trails by 10 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA 617thin sample | 364 | 68.8% | 82 min | 1.37% | C |
| All United Airlines on DEN–ORD | 3,885 | 71.9% | 82 min | 0.82% | C+ |
| All carriers on DEN–ORD | 6,109 | 71.8% | 88 min | 1.11% | C |
| United Airlines, whole network | 830,825 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.02% | B |
Across the year
UA 617 quarter by quarter
UA 617 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 61.7%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 73 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights75.0%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights68.5%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights62.9%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights61.7%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
By weekday, UA 617 did best on Saturday at 74.5% on time and worst on Sunday at 61.5%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late UA 617 runs when it is late
The 111 late arrivals split 46 under half an hour, 25 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 40 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early37 flights10.4%
- Within 15 min208 flights58.4%
- 15–29 min late46 flights12.9%
- 30–59 min late25 flights7.0%
- 1–2 hours late20 flights5.6%
- 2+ hours late20 flights5.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 356 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
13 of 77 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. In the other direction, 47 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for UA 617
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 February 2026, 12 hours 11 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as national airspace system delay.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 February 2026 | 12 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 March 2026 | 7 hours 51 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 27 July 2026 | 7 hours 20 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 11 June 2026 | 6 hours 59 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 19 November 2025 | 5 hours 45 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why UA 617 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 52% of the 9,148 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
52% 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 4,749 minutes out of 9,148, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 9,148 delay minutes reported on UA 617.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
11.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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.
The same number turns up on four other city pairs in the data, including ORD to JAX (45), ORD to BUF (26) and LAS to DEN (21), but none flew often enough under UA 617 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. 364 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 617
For a booking, read UA 617 as 68.8% on time with 1.37% cancelled over 364 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 2865 on the same route79.2%
- United Airlines 2329 on the same route84.1%
- United Airlines 1023 on the same route59.8%
- United Airlines 1377 on the same route90.0%
- American Airlines 2771 on the same route87.9%
- United Airlines 2258 on the same route71.2%
- 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.