Carrier route record
UADEN→OMA
United Airlines · Denver to Omaha
- Flights
- 1,287
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- 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 OMA lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four 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 1,287 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 385 at 89.0% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on DEN to OMA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,281 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.31%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.8%
Every carrier on DEN to OMA, 3,289 flights
These figures cover 1,287 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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 OMA
United flew 1,287 of the 3,289 flights on DEN to OMA, about 39% of it. Its 76.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 89.0% to Frontier at 70.3%. 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 89.0% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 72.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,404 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 385 | 89.0% | 60 min | 0.78% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,287 | 76.5% | 64 min | 0.31% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,404 | 72.5% | 53 min | 0.43% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 213 | 70.3% | 72 min | 0.00% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on DEN to OMA
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 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am344 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm282 flights84.9%
- 2pm–5pm81 flights71.6%
- 5pm–8pm364 flights70.5%
- 8pm–5am216 flights64.0%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.0% on time, against 84.9% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on DEN to OMA through the year
July is the worst month at 59.5% on time, 31 points below November, the best at 90.0%. 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 127 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 72.0%. 10 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 54% 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.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
54% 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 31 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 19,292 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 84.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.31%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 472 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 78.4% on time across 1,286 flights, within 2 points 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 1,287 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 OMA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 90.0% on time and July 59.5%, a swing of 31 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,281 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to OMA, every carrier
- United on OMA to DEN, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to OMA89.0%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to OMA72.5%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to OMA70.3%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) 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.