Carrier route record
UARIC→DEN
United Airlines · Richmond to Denver
- Flights
- 439
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on RIC to DEN lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly 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 439 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's RIC to DEN record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 45 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 429 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.91%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
69.5%
Every carrier on RIC to DEN, 818 flights
These figures cover 439 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on RIC to DEN
United flew 439 of the 818 flights on RIC to DEN, most of the route. Its 81.8% on time is 12 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 81.8% to Southwest at 50.3%. 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) | 439 | 81.8% | 72 min | 0.91% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 89 | 71.9% | 71 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 290 | 50.3% | 60 min | 1.03% | F |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on RIC to DEN
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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 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am364 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm74 flights55.1%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.2% of the time, against 55.1% for the afternoon window. That is 32 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on RIC to DEN through the year
August is the worst month at 72.0% on time, 25 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. August was the busiest month here, with 54 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.2% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 75.0%, a spread of 15 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on RIC to DEN runs when it is late
The 78 late arrivals split 30 under half an hour, 18 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 30 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early107 flights24.9%
- Within 15 min244 flights56.9%
- 15–29 min late30 flights7.0%
- 30–59 min late18 flights4.2%
- 1–2 hours late18 flights4.2%
- 2+ hours late12 flights2.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 429 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 56 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 5 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 27 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DEN.
The worst days
Worst days for United on RIC to DEN
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 September 2025, 7 hours 43 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 11 September 2025 | 7 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 October 2025 | 7 hours 1 minute | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 May 2026 | 4 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 July 2026 | 3 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 January 2026 | 3 hours 26 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 56% of the 5,603 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,131 of the 5,603 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,603 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.91% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.37%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.0% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.9% on time across 439 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 439 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. 439 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 81.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 429 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.