Carrier route record
UADEN→GEG
United Airlines · Denver to Spokane
- Flights
- 833
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 40%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on DEN to GEG sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 833 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on DEN to GEG from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 829 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.24%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.2%
Every carrier on DEN to GEG, 2,062 flights
These figures cover 833 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on DEN to GEG
United flew 833 of the 2,062 flights on DEN to GEG, about 40% of it. Its 74.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 90.3% to Southwest at 70.1%. Two 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 Airlinesthin sample | 250 | 90.3% | 47 min | 0.80% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 122 | 86.1% | 34 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 833 | 74.3% | 53 min | 0.24% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 857 | 70.1% | 48 min | 0.35% | C+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on DEN to GEG
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 25 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–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm404 flights80.9%
- 2pm–5pm63 flights55.7%
- 5pm–8pm364 flights70.0%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 80.9% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 55.7%. 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 404 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on DEN to GEG through the year
July is the worst month at 55.6% on time, 38 points below April, the best at 93.3%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 91 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.8%. 15 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 47% of the 11,000 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
47% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 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 11,349 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,142 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.24%, 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
6.9% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 836 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.4% on time across 833 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 833 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 GEG
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 833 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 74.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 829 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to GEG, every carrier
- United on GEG to DEN, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to GEG90.3%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to GEG86.1%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to GEG70.1%
- 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 7.04 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.