Carrier route record
UADEN→MCI
United Airlines · Denver to Kansas City
- Flights
- 1,297
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- 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 MCI lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 1,297 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 373 at 89.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on DEN to MCI from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,291 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.5%
Every carrier on DEN to MCI, 4,269 flights
These figures cover 1,297 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on DEN to MCI
United flew 1,297 of the 4,269 flights on DEN to MCI, about 30% of it. Its 78.2% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 89.2% to Southwest at 71.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 89.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 71.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,338 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 373 | 89.2% | 58 min | 0.27% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 261 | 81.5% | 68 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,297 | 78.2% | 66 min | 0.39% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,338 | 71.1% | 56 min | 0.47% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 18 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 18 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on DEN to MCI
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 23 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am20 flights—
- 8am–11am341 flights87.9%
- 11am–2pm364 flights86.0%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm364 flights68.0%
- 8pm–5am208 flights64.9%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.9% on time, against 87.9% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on DEN to MCI through the year
July is the worst month at 61.8% on time, 30 points below November, the best at 92.0%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 142 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 76.3%. 5 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 55% of the 19,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
55% 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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 18,582 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 87.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.39%, 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
8.1% 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.
The 533 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 runs 77.8% on time across 1,298 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,297 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 MCI
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 92.0% on time and July 61.8%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,291 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to MCI, every carrier
- United on MCI to DEN, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to MCI89.2%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to MCI81.5%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to MCI71.1%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.