Carrier route record

UAICT→DEN

United Airlines · Wichita to Denver

Flights: 371
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 17%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 40 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 371 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 1,260 at 80.8% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on ICT to DEN runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 82 extra late arrivals.

On time

69.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 369 completed flights

Avg delay

38 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.54%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.6%

Every carrier on ICT to DEN, 2,190 flights

These figures cover 371 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

United against every carrier on ICT to DEN

United flew 371 of the 2,190 flights on ICT to DEN, about 17% of it. Its 69.4% on time is 9 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 80.8% to United at 69.4%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on ICT to DEN
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	1,260	80.8%	86 min	0.63%	B+
Southwest Airlines	559	79.6%	70 min	0.54%	B+
United Airlines (this page)	371	69.4%	38 min	0.54%	C+

No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 80.8%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

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 69.4% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

United on ICT to DEN through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.November best, May worst

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, Thursday is the strongest day at 75.5% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 58.5%. 17 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. National Airspace System accounts for 70% of the 4,268 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.

National Airspace System
70%
Carrier
26%
Extreme weather
2%
Late-arriving aircraft
2%

70% 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 2,985 minutes out of 4,268, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,268 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.54%, below the national 1.81% 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 3.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 73.2% on time across 372 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. 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 69.4% 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.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures