Carrier route record
UAGTF→DEN
United Airlines · Great Falls to Denver
- Flights
- 527
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 72%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on GTF to DEN earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 527 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's GTF to DEN record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 68 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 522 completed flights
Avg delay
120 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.76%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
86.1%
Every carrier on GTF to DEN, 728 flights
These figures cover 527 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 GTF to DEN
United flew 527 of the 728 flights on GTF to DEN, most of the route. Its 84.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 86.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 91.5% to United at 84.1%. 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 Airlinesthin sample | 201 | 91.5% | 121 min | 1.00% | A |
| United Airlines (this page) | 527 | 84.1% | 120 min | 0.76% | B+ |
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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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am238 flights90.7%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm289 flights78.7%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.7% of the time, against 78.7% for the afternoon window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 289 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on GTF to DEN through the year
June is the worst month at 73.3% on time, 18 points below April, the best at 91.7%. 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 77.9%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on GTF to DEN runs when it is late
United on GTF to DEN often beats the schedule: 257 of 522 completed flights, 49%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When United on GTF to DEN is late it tends to be very late: 42 of its 83 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 27 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early257 flights49.2%
- Within 15 min182 flights34.9%
- 15–29 min late25 flights4.8%
- 30–59 min late16 flights3.1%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights2.9%
- 2+ hours late27 flights5.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 522 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
22 of 84 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. 21 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on GTF to DEN
The latest arrival of the period was on 9 July 2026, 25 hours 17 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 9 July 2026 | 25 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 May 2026 | 10 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 June 2026 | 9 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 August 2026 | 8 hours 58 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 August 2026 | 7 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 9,992 reported delay minutes.
- 34%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.7% on time here. The split is drawn from 9,992 reported delay minutes.
No single cause dominates. carrier at 34%, late-arriving aircraft at 33% and national airspace system at 28% split the 9,992 reported delay minutes between them. An even spread like this usually means the operation is running close to its designed capacity with no one obvious weak point, and it is the hardest pattern for a traveller to route around.
Cancellations are rare at 0.76%, 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
8.0% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 623 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 73.5% on time across 527 flights, 11 points below 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 527 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 GTF to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 527 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 84.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 522 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- GTF to DEN, every carrier
- United on DEN to GTF, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on GTF to DEN91.5%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.