Carrier route record
UADEN→ELP
United Airlines · Denver to El Paso
- Flights
- 729
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on DEN to ELP 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 729 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on DEN to ELP from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 723 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.41%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.8%
Every carrier on DEN to ELP, 1,872 flights
These figures cover 729 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 ELP
United flew 729 of the 1,872 flights on DEN to ELP, about 39% of it. Its 78.8% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 80.1% to Southwest at 68.8%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 348 | 80.1% | 66 min | 0.29% | B+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 729 | 78.8% | 62 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 795 | 68.8% | 56 min | 0.25% | C+ |
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm365 flights87.1%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm238 flights67.4%
- 8pm–5am126 flights76.0%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 87.1% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 67.4%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on DEN to ELP through the year
June is the worst month at 61.0% on time, 28 points below January, the best at 88.7%. 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.4%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on DEN to ELP runs when it is late
The 153 late arrivals split 51 under half an hour, 54 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 48 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early134 flights18.5%
- Within 15 min436 flights60.3%
- 15–29 min late51 flights7.1%
- 30–59 min late54 flights7.5%
- 1–2 hours late29 flights4.0%
- 2+ hours late19 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 723 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
34 of 164 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. 23 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on DEN to ELP
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 August 2026, 4 hours 30 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Four of the five worst days fell in August 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 August 2026 | 4 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 August 2026 | 4 hours 20 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 August 2026 | 4 hours 4 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 July 2026 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 August 2026 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 67% of the 9,515 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 67%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
67% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,515 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 67 to one. The split is drawn from 9,515 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.41%, 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
6.6% 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 563 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.6% on time across 729 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 729 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 ELP
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 729 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 78.8% 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 ELP, every carrier
- United on ELP to DEN, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to ELP80.1%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to ELP68.8%
- 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.