Carrier route record
UARIC→DEN
United Airlines · Richmond to Denver
- Flights
- 395
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 52%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on RIC to DEN lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six 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 395 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's RIC to DEN record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 59 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 389 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.01%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.6%
Every carrier on RIC to DEN, 756 flights
These figures cover 395 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 RIC to DEN
United flew 395 of the 756 flights on RIC to DEN, most of the route. Its 83.5% on time is 10 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 83.5% to Southwest at 59.9%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 395 | 83.5% | 77 min | 1.01% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 64 | 75.0% | 50 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 297 | 59.9% | 54 min | 1.01% | D |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on RIC to DEN
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 395 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split United's RIC to DEN record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 83.5% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
United on RIC to DEN through the year
July is the worst month at 71.0% on time, 26 points below April, the best at 96.7%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 51 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.2% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 75.5%. 15 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. Carrier accounts for 67% of the 4,934 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.
- 67%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 3,286 of the 4,934 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,934 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.01% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.51%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.4% 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.
The 1,481 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.4% on time across 395 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 395 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 RIC to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 395 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 83.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 389 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.