Carrier route record
UASBA→DEN
United Airlines · Santa Barbara to Denver
- Flights
- 771
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 73%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on SBA to DEN earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 771 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's SBA to DEN record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 82 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 760 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
85.5%
Every carrier on SBA to DEN, 1,058 flights
These figures cover 771 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 SBA to DEN
United flew 771 of the 1,058 flights on SBA to DEN, most of the route. Its 85.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 85.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.5% to Southwest at 85.3%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 771 | 85.5% | 70 min | 0.65% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 287 | 85.3% | 50 min | 0.70% | A+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on SBA 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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights93.1%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm363 flights77.5%
- 2pm–5pm8 flights—
- 5pm–8pm35 flights85.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 100%. 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 77.5% on time against 93.1% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on SBA to DEN through the year
July is the worst month at 70.7% on time, 21 points below October, the best at 91.6%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 83 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 91.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 80.7%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on SBA to DEN runs when it is late
United on SBA to DEN often beats the schedule: 255 of 760 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 110 late arrivals split 39 under half an hour, 27 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 44 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early255 flights33.6%
- Within 15 min395 flights52.0%
- 15–29 min late39 flights5.1%
- 30–59 min late27 flights3.6%
- 1–2 hours late25 flights3.3%
- 2+ hours late19 flights2.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 760 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
34 of 123 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. 21 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on SBA to DEN
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 February 2026, 8 hours 14 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across February, December, June and March, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 February 2026 | 8 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 December 2025 | 4 hours 34 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 23 June 2026 | 4 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 March 2026 | 3 hours 58 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 17 February 2026 | 3 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 7,646 reported delay minutes.
- 39%National Airspace System
- 38%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,904 of the 7,646 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,646 reported delay minutes.
39% 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 2,962 minutes out of 7,646, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.65%, 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
5.8% 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 916 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 75.6% on time across 771 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 771 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 SBA to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 771 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 85.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 760 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.