Carrier route record
UASBP→DEN
United Airlines · San Luis Obispo to Denver
- Flights
- 465
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 64%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on SBP to DEN lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 465 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's SBP to DEN record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 60 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 454 completed flights
Avg delay
122 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.2%
Every carrier on SBP to DEN, 724 flights
These figures cover 465 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.
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 SBP to DEN
United flew 465 of the 724 flights on SBP to DEN, most of the route. Its 83.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 82.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 83.3% to SkyWest at 80.2%. 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) | 465 | 83.3% | 122 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 259 | 80.2% | 104 min | 0.00% | B+ |
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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am361 flights87.6%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm103 flights67.0%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% 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 67.0% on time against 87.6% 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 361 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on SBP to DEN through the year
December is the weak month at 76.7% on time, against 96.8% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 92.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 75.8%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on SBP to DEN runs when it is late
The 76 late arrivals split 24 under half an hour, 18 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 34 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early89 flights19.6%
- Within 15 min289 flights63.7%
- 15–29 min late24 flights5.3%
- 30–59 min late18 flights4.0%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights2.4%
- 2+ hours late23 flights5.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 454 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 75 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. 16 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on SBP to DEN
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 April 2026, 11 hours 10 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 8 April 2026 | 11 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 February 2026 | 9 hours 57 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 December 2025 | 8 hours 2 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 April 2026 | 7 hours 57 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 November 2025 | 7 hours 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 9,262 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,262 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 to one. The split is drawn from 9,262 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,405 of the 9,262 delay minutes reported here.
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
7.5% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 931 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 78.9% on time across 465 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 465 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 SBP to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 465 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 83.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 454 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SBP to DEN, every carrier
- United on DEN to SBP, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on SBP to DEN80.2%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.