Carrier route record
UADEN→FLL
United Airlines · Denver to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,173
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 74%
- 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 FLL lands a B+, 4 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 1,173 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 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
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,166 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.26%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.6%
Every carrier on DEN to FLL, 1,578 flights
These figures cover 1,173 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 FLL
United flew 1,173 of the 1,578 flights on DEN to FLL, most of the route. Its 81.0% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 81.0% 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) | 1,173 | 81.0% | 58 min | 0.26% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 383 | 63.9% | 59 min | 0.52% | D+ |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 22 | 61.9% | 98 min | 4.55% | D− |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on DEN to FLL
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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 1,173 flights.
- 5am–8am20 flights—
- 8am–11am484 flights82.3%
- 11am–2pm39 flights84.2%
- 2pm–5pm213 flights80.8%
- 5pm–8pm334 flights78.1%
- 8pm–5am83 flights81.9%
Scale runs 70% 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 84.2% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 78.1%. 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 58.0% on time, 33 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 76.4%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on DEN to FLL runs when it is late
United on DEN to FLL often beats the schedule: 332 of 1,166 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 221 late arrivals split 87 under half an hour, 65 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 69 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early332 flights28.5%
- Within 15 min613 flights52.6%
- 15–29 min late87 flights7.5%
- 30–59 min late65 flights5.6%
- 1–2 hours late40 flights3.4%
- 2+ hours late29 flights2.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,166 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
36 of 186 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. In the other direction, 71 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 FLL.
The worst days
Worst days for United on DEN to FLL
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 July 2026, 4 hours 34 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 July 2026 | 4 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 July 2026 | 4 hours 9 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 February 2026 | 3 hours 57 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 March 2026 | 3 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 April 2026 | 3 hours 42 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. The split is drawn from 12,759 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.26%, 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
5.9% 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 1,703 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 87.9% on time across 1,174 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,173 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 58.0%, a swing of 33 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,166 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 FLL63.9%
- 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
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.