Carrier route record

UAPSP→DEN

United Airlines · Palm Springs to Denver

Flights: 878
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 PSP to DEN lands a B, 4 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 878 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 577 at 87.4% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on PSP to DEN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 864 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.25%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

82.5%

Every carrier on PSP to DEN, 2,027 flights

These figures cover 878 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.

Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Carrier by carrier

United against every carrier on PSP to DEN

United flew 878 of the 2,027 flights on PSP to DEN, about 43% of it. Its 80.8% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 87.4% to Frontier at 80.0%. 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 87.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 80.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 542 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on PSP to DEN
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	577	87.4%	101 min	0.52%	A+
United Airlines (this page)	878	80.8%	73 min	1.25%	B
Southwest Airlines	542	80.0%	51 min	0.55%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	30	80.0%	148 min	0.00%	B+

SkyWest leads Southwest by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

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 15 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am260 flights90.7%
8am–11am50 flights88.0%
11am–2pm398 flights75.4%
2pm–5pm168 flights75.8%
5pm–8pm2 flights—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 75.4% on time against 90.7% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 398 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

United on PSP to DEN through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.October best, May worst

October is the best month on the calendar at 92.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 119 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.2% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 76.9%, a spread of 9 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late United on PSP to DEN runs when it is late

United on PSP to DEN often beats the schedule: 289 of 864 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 166 late arrivals split 65 under half an hour, 37 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 64 an hour or more.

15+ min early289 flights33.4%
Within 15 min409 flights47.3%
15–29 min late65 flights7.5%
30–59 min late37 flights4.3%
1–2 hours late34 flights3.9%
2+ hours late30 flights3.5%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 864 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

25 of 165 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. 26 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for United on PSP to DEN

The latest arrival of the period was on 26 February 2026, 6 hours 41 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across February, March, July and August, with no single month standing out.

The latest arrivals of United on PSP to DEN in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
26 February 2026	6 hours 41 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
14 March 2026	6 hours 9 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
22 July 2026	5 hours 20 minutes	National Airspace System
12 March 2026	4 hours 51 minutes	Carrier
14 August 2026	4 hours 39 minutes	National Airspace System

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 12,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
37%
National Airspace System
35%
Carrier
28%
Extreme weather
0%

37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 37 to one. The split is drawn from 12,039 reported delay minutes.

35% 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 4,170 minutes out of 12,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations sit at 1.25% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.4% 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.

The 776 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.

The return leg runs 78.7% on time across 879 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 878 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 PSP to DEN

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 878 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 80.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 864 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures