Carrier route record
UADEN→SBP
United Airlines · Denver to San Luis Obispo
- Flights
- 465
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 64%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on DEN to SBP lands a B+, 2 points 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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 465 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on DEN to SBP from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 456 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.5%
Every carrier on DEN to SBP, 724 flights
These figures cover 465 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 SBP
United flew 465 of the 724 flights on DEN to SBP, most of the route. Its 78.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.9% to SkyWest at 77.6%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 465 | 78.9% | 82 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 259 | 77.6% | 48 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on DEN to SBP
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 465 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm103 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm21 flights—
- 5pm–8pm341 flights77.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 83.5% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 77.4%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 341 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on DEN to SBP through the year
June is the worst month at 61.7% on time, 25 points below January, the best at 86.7%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.7%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on DEN to SBP runs when it is late
The 96 late arrivals split 25 under half an hour, 36 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 35 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early110 flights24.1%
- Within 15 min250 flights54.8%
- 15–29 min late25 flights5.5%
- 30–59 min late36 flights7.9%
- 1–2 hours late21 flights4.6%
- 2+ hours late14 flights3.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 456 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
27 of 109 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. 14 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on DEN to SBP
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 November 2025, 12 hours 14 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The five worst days are spread across November, December, June and August, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 11 November 2025 | 12 hours 14 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 13 December 2025 | 11 hours 1 minute | Extreme weather |
| 21 June 2026 | 10 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 August 2026 | 5 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 June 2026 | 4 hours 2 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 7,909 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 18%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 18% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 7,909 reported delay minutes.
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 7,909 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations are rare at 0.43%, 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
7.7% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 931 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 83.3% on time across 465 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 465 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 SBP
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 465 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 78.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 456 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.