Carrier route record
UADEN→DTW
United Airlines · Denver to Detroit
- Flights
- 726
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 23%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on DEN to DTW lands a B+, 3 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 726 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,247 at 86.8% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 86.8% on time across 1,247 flights.
Key figures
On time
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 723 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.1%
Every carrier on DEN to DTW, 3,109 flights
These figures cover 726 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 DTW
United flew 726 of the 3,109 flights on DEN to DTW, about 23% of it. Its 80.5% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 100.0% to Southwest at 57.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 86.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 57.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 649 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,247 | 86.8% | 79 min | 0.32% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 726 | 80.5% | 63 min | 0.14% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 486 | 79.6% | 83 min | 1.23% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 649 | 57.2% | 52 min | 0.92% | D+ |
The spread between Delta and Southwest is 30 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 30 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on DEN to DTW
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 17 points, against 30 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am363 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm363 flights71.8%
- 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 89.2% of the time, against 71.8% for the evening window. That is 17 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 363 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on DEN to DTW through the year
August is the worst month at 72.1% on time, 19 points below November, the best at 91.5%. 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 83.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.7%, a spread of 6 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on DEN to DTW runs when it is late
United on DEN to DTW often beats the schedule: 183 of 723 completed flights, 25%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 141 late arrivals split 50 under half an hour, 44 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 47 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early183 flights25.3%
- Within 15 min399 flights55.2%
- 15–29 min late50 flights6.9%
- 30–59 min late44 flights6.1%
- 1–2 hours late27 flights3.7%
- 2+ hours late20 flights2.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 723 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
25 of 135 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. 31 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on DEN to DTW
The latest arrival of the period was on 3 August 2026, 5 hours 40 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 3 August 2026 | 5 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 July 2026 | 4 hours 57 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 May 2026 | 4 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 August 2026 | 4 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 March 2026 | 3 hours 22 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 8,904 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,904 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 to one. The split is drawn from 8,904 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 89.2% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.14%, 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
6.5% 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.
The 1,123 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 return leg runs 82.8% on time across 726 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 726 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 DTW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 726 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 80.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 723 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to DTW, every carrier
- United on DTW to DEN, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DEN to DTW86.8%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to DTW79.6%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to DTW57.2%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.