Carrier route record
UADEN→FLL
United Airlines · Denver to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,225
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 75%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on DEN to FLL lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,225 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on DEN to FLL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,215 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.33%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.4%
Every carrier on DEN to FLL, 1,630 flights
These figures cover 1,225 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on DEN to FLL
United flew 1,225 of the 1,630 flights on DEN to FLL, most of the route. Its 81.2% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 81.2% to JetBlue at 61.9%. 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) | 1,225 | 81.2% | 58 min | 0.33% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 383 | 66.0% | 51 min | 0.52% | C+ |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 22 | 61.9% | 98 min | 4.55% | D− |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on DEN to FLL
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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am20 flights—
- 8am–11am484 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm53 flights86.5%
- 2pm–5pm199 flights79.9%
- 5pm–8pm349 flights74.9%
- 8pm–5am120 flights83.3%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 86.5% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 74.9%. 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 484 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on DEN to FLL through the year
July is the worst month at 66.3% on time, 25 points below November, the best at 91.2%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 143 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 77.7%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 43 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 13,289 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.33%, below the national 1.81% 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 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 1,703 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 87.2% on time across 1,226 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,225 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking United on DEN to FLL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 91.2% on time and July 66.3%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,215 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to FLL, every carrier
- United on FLL to DEN, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to FLL66.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.