Carrier route record
UALGA→DEN
United Airlines · New York to Denver
- Flights
- 2,017
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,017 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,036 at 71.3% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,968 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.98%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.7%
Every carrier on LGA to DEN, 4,672 flights
These figures cover 2,017 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on LGA to DEN
United flew 2,017 of the 4,672 flights on LGA to DEN, about 43% of it. Its 77.8% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 77.8% to Southwest at 61.1%. 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 71.3% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 61.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,467 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 2,017 | 77.8% | 71 min | 1.98% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,036 | 71.3% | 71 min | 4.15% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 152 | 64.4% | 105 min | 3.95% | D− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,467 | 61.1% | 63 min | 3.27% | D− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 4.2% 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
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 25 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am326 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am321 flights88.7%
- 11am–2pm364 flights86.3%
- 2pm–5pm410 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm596 flights64.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.8% on time, against 89.6% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 596 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on LGA to DEN through the year
July is the worst month at 62.7% on time, 27 points below April, the best at 89.3%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 177 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.4%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 31,000 reported delay minutes.
- 33%National Airspace System
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 12%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 12% 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 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 31,090 reported delay minutes.
33% 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 10,000 minutes out of 31,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.98% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.45%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.8% 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 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 74.0% on time across 2,017 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 2,017 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 July 62.7%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,968 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 DEN71.3%
- Frontier Airlines on LGA to DEN64.4%
- Southwest Airlines on LGA to DEN61.1%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.