Carrier route record
UAMCI→DEN
United Airlines · Kansas City to Denver
- Flights
- 1,298
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on MCI 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,298 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 374 at 89.5% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on MCI 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 1,287 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.54%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.1%
Every carrier on MCI to DEN, 4,274 flights
These figures cover 1,298 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 MCI to DEN
United flew 1,298 of the 4,274 flights on MCI to DEN, about 30% of it. Its 77.8% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 89.5% to Southwest at 73.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 89.5% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 73.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,341 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 374 | 89.5% | 104 min | 0.27% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,298 | 77.8% | 61 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 261 | 75.8% | 119 min | 0.38% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,341 | 73.0% | 58 min | 0.73% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on MCI 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 28 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am208 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am365 flights73.2%
- 11am–2pm234 flights88.8%
- 2pm–5pm127 flights87.2%
- 5pm–8pm364 flights64.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.0% on time, against 92.1% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on MCI to DEN through the year
August is the worst month at 63.9% on time, 25 points below November, the best at 88.6%. 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 141 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 69.2%. 13 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 48% of the 17,000 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.
- 48%National Airspace System
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
48% 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 8,312 minutes out of 17,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 17,425 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
6.6% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 533 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 78.2% on time across 1,297 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,298 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 MCI to DEN
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 88.6% on time and August 63.9%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,287 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCI to DEN, every carrier
- United on DEN to MCI, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on MCI to DEN89.5%
- Frontier Airlines on MCI to DEN75.8%
- Southwest Airlines on MCI to DEN73.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Kansas City International (MCI) 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.