Carrier route record
UALGA→DEN
United Airlines · New York to Denver
- Flights
- 2,021
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on LGA to DEN lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,021 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,033 at 70.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on LGA to DEN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,967 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
70.0%
Every carrier on LGA to DEN, 4,663 flights
These figures cover 2,021 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 LGA to DEN
United flew 2,021 of the 4,663 flights on LGA to DEN, about 43% of it. Its 77.6% on time is 8 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 77.6% to Southwest at 59.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 70.7% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 59.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,516 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 2,021 | 77.6% | 80 min | 2.08% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,033 | 70.7% | 68 min | 4.55% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 93 | 67.8% | 121 min | 3.23% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,516 | 59.3% | 63 min | 4.02% | D− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 4.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on LGA to DEN
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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 24 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am322 flights86.9%
- 8am–11am324 flights89.4%
- 11am–2pm364 flights86.6%
- 2pm–5pm410 flights70.2%
- 5pm–8pm601 flights65.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.4% of the time, against 65.7% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 601 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on LGA to DEN through the year
December is the weak month at 69.8% on time, against 89.3% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 177 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.2%, a spread of 8 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on LGA to DEN runs when it is late
United on LGA to DEN often beats the schedule: 650 of 1,967 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 440 late arrivals split 144 under half an hour, 140 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 156 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early650 flights33.0%
- Within 15 min877 flights44.6%
- 15–29 min late144 flights7.3%
- 30–59 min late140 flights7.1%
- 1–2 hours late94 flights4.8%
- 2+ hours late62 flights3.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,967 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
71 of 340 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 171 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 LGA to DEN
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 July 2026, 26 hours behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Four of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 July 2026 | 26 hours | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 July 2026 | 19 hours 34 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 19 May 2026 | 18 hours 39 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 July 2026 | 16 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 July 2026 | 16 hours 25 minutes | Extreme weather |
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 35,000 reported delay minutes.
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 13%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 35,380 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.08% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.59%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,620 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.5% on time across 2,021 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,021 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking United on LGA to DEN
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 89.3% on time and December 69.8%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,967 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to DEN, every carrier
- United on DEN to LGA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to DEN70.7%
- Southwest Airlines on LGA to DEN59.3%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.