Carrier route record
UAMTJ→DEN
United Airlines · Montrose to Denver
- Flights
- 894
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 63%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on MTJ to DEN lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 894 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on MTJ 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
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 888 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.45%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.4%
Every carrier on MTJ to DEN, 1,423 flights
These figures cover 894 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on MTJ to DEN
United flew 894 of the 1,423 flights on MTJ to DEN, most of the route. Its 80.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 81.5% to SkyWest at 74.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 428 | 81.5% | 65 min | 0.23% | B+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 894 | 80.5% | 92 min | 0.45% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 101 | 74.3% | 78 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on MTJ to DEN
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights86.8%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm363 flights81.6%
- 2pm–5pm166 flights64.5%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.8% of the time, against 64.5% for the afternoon window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on MTJ to DEN through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 96.6% 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 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.6%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on MTJ to DEN runs when it is late
United on MTJ to DEN often beats the schedule: 365 of 888 completed flights, 41%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 173 late arrivals split 58 under half an hour, 38 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 77 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early365 flights41.1%
- Within 15 min350 flights39.4%
- 15–29 min late58 flights6.5%
- 30–59 min late38 flights4.3%
- 1–2 hours late29 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late48 flights5.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 888 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
42 of 171 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. 44 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on MTJ to DEN
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 October 2025, 13 hours 26 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 October 2025 | 13 hours 26 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 October 2025 | 9 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 20 June 2026 | 8 hours 4 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 June 2026 | 7 hours 13 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 19 December 2025 | 6 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 15,944 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.45%, 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
8.7% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 197 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.8% on time across 894 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 894 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 MTJ to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 894 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 80.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 888 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MTJ to DEN, every carrier
- United on DEN to MTJ, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on MTJ to DEN81.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on MTJ to DEN74.3%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.