Carrier route record
UADEN→FAT
United Airlines · Denver to Fresno
- Flights
- 344
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- 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 FAT sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 344 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so United on DEN to FAT runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 70 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 343 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.29%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.3%
Every carrier on DEN to FAT, 1,452 flights
These figures cover 344 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on DEN to FAT
United flew 344 of the 1,452 flights on DEN to FAT, about 24% of it. Its 70.3% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 87.8% to United at 70.3%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 748 | 87.8% | 63 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 360 | 74.1% | 38 min | 0.28% | C+ |
| United Airlines (this page)thin sample | 344 | 70.3% | 60 min | 0.29% | C+ |
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Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 344 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split United's DEN to FAT record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 70.3% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
United on DEN to FAT through the year
August is the worst month at 50.0% on time, 33 points below April, the best at 83.3%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 74.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 66.7%, a spread of 7 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on DEN to FAT runs when it is late
The 102 late arrivals split 38 under half an hour, 28 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 36 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early51 flights14.9%
- Within 15 min190 flights55.4%
- 15–29 min late38 flights11.1%
- 30–59 min late28 flights8.2%
- 1–2 hours late25 flights7.3%
- 2+ hours late11 flights3.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 343 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
17 of 99 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. In the other direction, 20 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 FAT.
The worst days
Worst days for United on DEN to FAT
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 August 2026, 6 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in August 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 12 August 2026 | 6 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 August 2026 | 4 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 February 2026 | 3 hours 1 minute | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 August 2026 | 2 hours 57 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 July 2026 | 2 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 6,075 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,075 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 to one. The split is drawn from 6,075 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,211 of the 6,075 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.29%, 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
10.5% 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 844 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 91.5% on time across 344 flights, 21 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 21 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 344 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 FAT
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 344 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 70.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 343 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to FAT, every carrier
- United on FAT to DEN, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to FAT87.8%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to FAT74.1%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.