Carrier route record
UAFSD→DEN
United Airlines · Sioux Falls to Denver
- Flights
- 366
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 20%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on FSD to DEN sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 366 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on FSD to DEN runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 79 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.64%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.4%
Every carrier on FSD to DEN, 1,832 flights
These figures cover 366 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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 FSD to DEN
United flew 366 of the 1,832 flights on FSD to DEN, about 20% of it. Its 69.7% on time is 9 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 81.9% to United at 69.7%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,308 | 81.9% | 105 min | 1.45% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 158 | 70.3% | 97 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 366 | 69.7% | 62 min | 1.64% | C |
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 366 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split United's FSD to DEN record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 69.7% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
United on FSD to DEN through the year
July is the worst month at 38.7% on time, 48 points below June, 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. May was the busiest month here, with 32 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 78.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 60.8%. 18 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. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 6,793 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.
- 47%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 3,199 of the 6,793 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,793 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.64% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.3% 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.
At 483 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.1% on time across 366 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 366 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 FSD to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 366 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 69.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 360 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FSD to DEN, every carrier
- United on DEN to FSD, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on FSD to DEN81.9%
- Frontier Airlines on FSD to DEN70.3%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.