Carrier route record
UADEN→RIC
United Airlines · Denver to Richmond
- Flights
- 439
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on DEN to RIC 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 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 439 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on DEN to RIC from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 436 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.68%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.7%
Every carrier on DEN to RIC, 818 flights
These figures cover 439 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on DEN to RIC
United flew 439 of the 818 flights on DEN to RIC, most of the route. Its 73.9% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 88.8% to Southwest at 63.0%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 89 | 88.8% | 55 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 439 | 73.9% | 67 min | 0.68% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 290 | 63.0% | 39 min | 1.03% | D |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on DEN to RIC
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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 439 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am75 flights77.3%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm363 flights73.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 77.3% on time for the 8am–11am window against 73.3% for 5pm–8pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 363 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on DEN to RIC through the year
August is the worst month at 56.6% on time, 40 points below April, the best at 96.7%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 54 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 64.6%, a spread of 19 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on DEN to RIC runs when it is late
The 114 late arrivals split 39 under half an hour, 28 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 47 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early61 flights14.0%
- Within 15 min261 flights59.9%
- 15–29 min late39 flights8.9%
- 30–59 min late28 flights6.4%
- 1–2 hours late30 flights6.9%
- 2+ hours late17 flights3.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 436 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 90 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 10 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 34 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 RIC.
The worst days
Worst days for United on DEN to RIC
The latest arrival of the period was on 9 November 2025, 5 hours 21 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 9 November 2025 | 5 hours 21 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 March 2026 | 4 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 July 2026 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 February 2026 | 3 hours 52 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 July 2026 | 3 hours 52 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 7,608 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 7,608 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 to one. The split is drawn from 7,608 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 77.3% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.68%, 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
10.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,481 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.8% on time across 439 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 439 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 RIC
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 439 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 73.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 436 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.