Carrier route record
UADEN→BDL
United Airlines · Denver to Hartford
- Flights
- 727
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 82%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on DEN to BDL lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 727 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on DEN to BDL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 721 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.83%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.2%
Every carrier on DEN to BDL, 887 flights
These figures cover 727 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on DEN to BDL
United flew 727 of the 887 flights on DEN to BDL, most of the route. Its 79.3% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.3% to Southwest at 56.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 727 | 79.3% | 57 min | 0.83% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 160 | 56.1% | 51 min | 3.12% | D− |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on DEN to BDL
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am365 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm362 flights71.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.3% of the time, against 71.3% for the evening window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on DEN to BDL through the year
August is the worst month at 64.5% on time, 26 points below February, the best at 90.6%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.8%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on DEN to BDL runs when it is late
United on DEN to BDL often beats the schedule: 214 of 721 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 149 late arrivals split 59 under half an hour, 47 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 43 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early214 flights29.7%
- Within 15 min358 flights49.7%
- 15–29 min late59 flights8.2%
- 30–59 min late47 flights6.5%
- 1–2 hours late26 flights3.6%
- 2+ hours late17 flights2.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 721 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 140 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 42 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 51 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 BDL.
The worst days
Worst days for United on DEN to BDL
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 August 2026, 4 hours 32 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 August 2026 | 4 hours 32 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 June 2026 | 4 hours 24 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 December 2025 | 3 hours 53 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 August 2026 | 3 hours 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 February 2026 | 3 hours 34 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 8,541 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,541 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 8,541 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.3% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.83%, below the national 1.89% 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 stage length
What a delay here costs
6.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,671 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.5% on time across 727 flights, 5 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 727 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 United on DEN to BDL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 727 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 79.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 721 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to BDL, every carrier
- United on BDL to DEN, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to BDL56.1%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.