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
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.
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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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 148 | 85.1% | 72 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 727 | 78.3% | 56 min | 0.28% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 359 | 69.5% | 43 min | 0.28% | C+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on DEN to GRR
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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
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.
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.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 July 2026 | 6 hours 27 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 August 2026 | 3 hours 42 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 August 2026 | 3 hours 21 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 July 2026 | 3 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 January 2026 | 2 hours 45 minutes | Late-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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
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
- DEN to GRR, every carrier
- United on GRR to DEN, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to GRR85.1%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to GRR69.5%
- 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 7.05 million flight records
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.