Carrier route record
UAICT→DEN
United Airlines · Wichita to Denver
- Flights
- 371
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 17%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ICT 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, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 371 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 559 at 81.6% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so United on ICT to DEN runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 87 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 369 completed flights
Avg delay
46 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.7%
Every carrier on ICT to DEN, 2,227 flights
These figures cover 371 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on ICT to DEN
United flew 371 of the 2,227 flights on ICT to DEN, about 17% of it. Its 68.6% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 81.6% to United at 68.6%.
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 559 | 81.6% | 62 min | 0.36% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,297 | 80.4% | 82 min | 0.62% | B+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 371 | 68.6% | 46 min | 0.54% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 81.6%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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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 371 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split United's ICT to DEN record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 68.6% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
United on ICT to DEN through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 84.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 33 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 76.9% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 58.5%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on ICT to DEN runs when it is late
Most of the lateness is short. 69 of the 116 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 17 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early46 flights12.5%
- Within 15 min207 flights56.1%
- 15–29 min late69 flights18.7%
- 30–59 min late30 flights8.1%
- 1–2 hours late12 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 369 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 42 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 5 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 79 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 DEN.
The worst days
Worst days for United on ICT to DEN
The latest arrival of the period was on 29 July 2026, 8 hours 41 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 29 July 2026 | 8 hours 41 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 4 August 2026 | 7 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 May 2026 | 3 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 December 2025 | 3 hours 36 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 11 March 2026 | 3 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 64% of the 5,328 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 64%National Airspace System
- 34%Carrier
- 2%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
64% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 3,397 minutes out of 5,328, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,328 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.6% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 420 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 75.6% on time across 372 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 371 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 ICT to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 371 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 68.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 369 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ICT to DEN, every carrier
- United on DEN to ICT, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on ICT to DEN81.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on ICT to DEN80.4%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
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.