Carrier route record
UAOMA→DEN
United Airlines · Omaha to Denver
- Flights
- 1,286
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on OMA to DEN lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 1,286 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 386 at 89.5% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on OMA 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
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,277 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.54%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.1%
Every carrier on OMA to DEN, 3,289 flights
These figures cover 1,286 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on OMA to DEN
United flew 1,286 of the 3,289 flights on OMA to DEN, about 39% of it. Its 78.4% 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 Frontier at 69.0%. 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 71.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,404 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 386 | 89.5% | 90 min | 0.78% | A+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,286 | 78.4% | 73 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,404 | 71.3% | 59 min | 0.64% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 213 | 69.0% | 120 min | 0.00% | C+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 18 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 18 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on OMA 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 31 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am213 flights93.9%
- 8am–11am365 flights74.3%
- 11am–2pm138 flights87.7%
- 2pm–5pm208 flights90.3%
- 5pm–8pm360 flights63.2%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.2% on time, against 93.9% 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 OMA to DEN through the year
July is the worst month at 70.8% on time, 15 points below January, the best at 85.4%. 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 127 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 76.1%. 6 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 45% of the 20,000 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.
- 45%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%Extreme weather
45% 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 9,036 minutes out of 20,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 20,032 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
8.1% 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 472 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 runs 76.5% on time across 1,287 flights, within 2 points 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 1,286 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 OMA to DEN
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 85.4% on time and July 70.8%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,277 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- OMA to DEN, every carrier
- United on DEN to OMA, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on OMA to DEN89.5%
- Southwest Airlines on OMA to DEN71.3%
- Frontier Airlines on OMA to DEN69.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- 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.