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DelayAtlas

Carrier route record

UADEN→GRR

United Airlines · Denver to Grand Rapids

Flights
727
Period
September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route
59%
Carriers
4
B+GRADE

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.

United on DEN to GRR lands a B+, about a point 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 727 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on DEN to GRR from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

Key figures

On time

78.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 722 completed flights

Avg delay

56 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.28%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

76.5%

Every carrier on DEN to GRR, 1,235 flights

These figures cover 727 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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.

Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Carrier by carrier

United against every carrier on DEN to GRR

United flew 727 of the 1,235 flights on DEN to GRR, most of the route. Its 78.3% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 100.0% to Southwest at 69.5%. Three 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.

On-time performance by carrier on DEN to GRR
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample1100.0%—0.00%A+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample14885.1%72 min0.00%A+
United Airlines (this page)72778.3%56 min0.28%B+
Southwest Airlinesthin sample35969.5%43 min0.28%C+

Flight by flight

United flight numbers on DEN to GRR

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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

  • 5am–8am—
  • 8am–11am364 flights88.7%
  • 11am–2pm—
  • 2pm–5pm—
  • 5pm–8pm363 flights67.7%
  • 8pm–5am—

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.7% of the time, against 67.7% for the evening window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

United on DEN to GRR through the year

On-time rate by calendar month74J82F80M85A82M77J75J74A77S87O83N65D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.October best, December worst

December is the weak month at 64.5% on time, against 87.1% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.8%, a spread of 9 points.

On-time rate by day of the week73.3Mon81.6Tue79.6Wed79.6Thu81.4Fri79.6Sat72.8Sun
Monday: 73.3 percent on time. Tuesday: 81.6 percent on time. Wednesday: 79.6 percent on time. Thursday: 79.6 percent on time. Friday: 81.4 percent on time. Saturday: 79.6 percent on time. Sunday: 72.8 percent on time

Arrival by arrival

How late United on DEN to GRR runs when it is late

The 157 late arrivals split 62 under half an hour, 48 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 47 an hour or more.

  • 15+ min early120 flights16.6%
  • Within 15 min445 flights61.6%
  • 15–29 min late62 flights8.6%
  • 30–59 min late48 flights6.6%
  • 1–2 hours late28 flights3.9%
  • 2+ hours late19 flights2.6%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 722 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

20 of 123 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. In the other direction, 54 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 GRR.

The worst days

Worst days for United on DEN to GRR

The latest arrival of the period was on 8 July 2026, 6 hours 27 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.

The latest arrivals of United on DEN to GRR in the period
DateArrived late byLargest filed cause
8 July 20266 hours 27 minutesCarrier
13 August 20263 hours 42 minutesLate-arriving aircraft
22 August 20263 hours 21 minutesLate-arriving aircraft
22 July 20263 hours 15 minutesLate-arriving aircraft
26 January 20262 hours 45 minutesLate-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why United runs late on this route

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 8,778 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

  • Late-arriving aircraft
    52%
  • National Airspace System
    25%
  • Carrier
    20%
  • Extreme weather
    2%

52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,778 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 24 to one. The split is drawn from 8,778 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.7% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.28%, 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

6.5% 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 1,015 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 runs 77.6% on time across 727 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 727 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 GRR

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 727 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 78.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 722 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Related

Where to go next

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.